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

...and for that they were rich,/And robbed the poor; and for that they were strong,/And scourged the weak; and for that they made laws/Which turned the sweat of labor's brow to blood! - /For these their sins the nations cast them out.

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.

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.

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

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

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