The world knows nothing of its greatest men.

There is no such test of a man's superiority of character as in the well-conducting of an unavoidable quarrel.

Shy and unready men are great betrayers of secrets, for there are few wants more urgent for the moment than the want of something to say.

A secret may be sometimes best kept by keeping the secret of its being a secret. It is not many years since a State secret of the greatest importance was printed without being divulged, merely by sending it to the press like any other matter, and trusting to the mechanical habits of the persons employed. They printed it piecemeal in ignorance of what it was about.

Of all the uses of adversity which are sweet, none are sweeter than those which grow out of disappointed love.

Shy and proud men are more liable than any others to fall into the hands of parasites and creatures of low character. For in the intimacies which are formed by shy men, they do not choose, but are chosen.

Where there are large powers with little ambition... nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes.