If not against us, nature is not for us.

A true military officer is in one particular like a true monk. Not with more self-abnegation will the latter keep his vows of monastic obedience than the former his vows of allegiance to martial duty.

Any appellative at all savouring of arbitrary rank is unsuitable to a man of liberal and catholic mind.

Thus it often is, that the constant friction of illiberal minds wears out at last the best resolves of the more generous.

Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth.

However baby man may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make; nevertheless, by the continual repetition of these very impressions, man has lost that sense of the full awfulness of the sea which aboriginally belongs to it.

Surely a gentle sister is the second best gift to a man; and it is first in point of occurrence; for the wife comes after.