Prodigality is indeed the vice of a weak nature, as avarice is of a strong one; it comes of a weak craving for those blandishments of the world which are easily to be had for money, and which, when obtained, are as much worse than worthless as a harlot's love is worse than none.

The art of living easily as to money is to pitch your scale of living one degree below your means.

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

He who gives only what he would as readily throw away, gives without generosity; for the essence of generosity is in self-sacrifice.

We figure to ourselves The thing we like; and then we build it up, As chance will have it, on the rock or sand,- For thought is tired of wandering o'er the world, And homebound Fancy runs her bark ashore.

Wisdom is corrupted by ambition, even when the quality of the ambition is intellectual. For ambition, even of this quality, is but a form of self-love.

If you know how a man deals with his money, how he gets it, spends it, keeps it, shares it, you know one of the most important things about him.