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

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

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.

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.

Of all the uses of adversity which are sweet, none are sweeter than those which grow out of disappointed love.

The philosophy which affects to teach us a contempt of money does not run very deep; for, indeed, it ought to be still more clear to the philosopher than it is to ordinary men, that there are few things in the world of greater importance.