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

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.

No siren did ever so charm the ear of the listener as the listening ear has charmed the soul of the siren.

Fear, indeed, is the mother of foresight.

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.

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.