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

The world knows nothing of its greatest men.

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

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.

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.

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.

His foodWas glory, which was poison to his mindAnd peril to his body.