I have not skillFrom such a sharp and waspish word as "No"To pluck the sting.

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.

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.

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

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

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