No person is ever good for much, that hasn't been swept off their feet by enthusiasm between ages twenty and thirty

A single seed of fact will produce in a season or two a harvest of calumnies; but sensible men will pay no attention to them.

The essence of true nobility is neglect of self. Let the thought of self pass in, and the beauty of a great action is gone, like the bloom from a soiled flower.

To tell men that they cannot help themselves is to fling them into recklessness and despair.

Beautiful is old age—beautiful as the slow-dropping mellow autumn of a rich glorious summer. In the old man, Nature has fulfilled her work; she loads him with blessings; she fills him with the fruits of a well-spent life; and, surrounded by his children and his children's children, she rocks him softly away to a grave, to which he is followed with blessings. God forbid we should not call it beautiful.

Truth only smells sweet forever, and illusions, however innocent, are deadly as the canker worm.

Courage is, on all hands, considered as an essential of high character.