We enter the world alone, we leave it alone.

To be happy is not the purpose for which you are placed in this world.

I cannot think the disputes and jealousies of Heaven are tried and settled by the swords of earth.

English character and English freedom depend comparatively little on the form which the Constitution assumes at Westminster. A centralised democracy may be as tyrannical as an absolute monarch; and if the vigour of the nation is to continue unimpaired, each individual, each family, each district, must preserve as far as possible its independence, its self-completeness, its powers and its privilege to manage its own affairs and think its own thoughts.

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.

Carelessness is inexcusable, and merits the inevitable sequence.

You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one.