It is singular how impatient men are with overpraise of others, how patient of overpraise of themselves; and yet the one does them no injury, while the other may be their ruin.

All thoughtful men are solitary and original in themselves.

Fate loves the fearless.

I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife.

Reputation is only a candle, of wavering and uncertain flame, and easily blown out, but it is the light by which the world looks for and finds merit.

I would hardly change the sorrowful words of the poets for their glad ones. Tears dampen the strings of the lyre, but they grow the tensor for it, and ring even the clearer and more ravishingly.

Many-sidedness of culture makes our vision clearer and keener in particulars.