This world is not a platform where you will hear Thalberg-piano-playing. It is a piano manufactory, where are dust and shavings and boards, and saws and files and rasps and sandpapers. The perfect instrument and the music will be hereafter.

God puts the excess of hope in one man, in order that it may be a medicine to the man who is despondent.

Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength; and strength is not used rightly when it serves only to carry a man above his fellows for his own solitary glory. He is the greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own.

Find out what your temptations are, and you will find out largely what you are yourself.

The worst thing in this world, next to anarchy, is government.

Clothes and manners do not make the man; but when he is made, they greatly improve his appearance.

It is sometimes of God's mercy that men in the eager pursuit of worldly aggrandizement are baffled; for they are very like a train going down an inclined plane - putting on the brake is not pleasant, but it keeps the car on the track.