Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.

The bad are frequently good enough to let you see how bad they are, but the good as frequently endeavor to get between you and themselves.

See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a fame won by his own deeds. Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.

What other words, we may almost ask, are memorable and worthy to be repeated than those which love has inspired? It is wonderful that they were ever uttered. They are few and rare indeed, but, like a strain of music, they are incessantly repeated and modulated by the memory. All other words crumble off with the stucco which overlies the heart. We should not dare to repeat these now aloud. We are not competent to hear them at all times.

Go confidently ... Live the life that you imagined.

All the past is here, present to be tried; let it approve itself if it can.