The only conclusive evidence of a man's sincerity is that he gives himself for a principle. Words, money, all things else, are comparatively easy to give away; but when a man makes a gift of his daily life and practice, it is plain that the truth, whatever it may be, has taken possession of him.

Practical application is the only mordant which will set things in the memory. Study without it is gymnastics, and not work, which alone will get intellectual bread.

Most men make the voyage of life as if they carried sealed orders which they were not to open till they were fairly in mid-ocean.

Folks never understand the folks they hate.

Democracy is nothing more than an experiment in government, more likely to succeed in a new soil, but likely to be tried in all soils, which must stand or fall on its own merits as others have done before it. For there is no trick of perpetual motion in politics any more than in mechanics.

Sincerity is impossible, unless it pervade the whole being, and the pretence of it saps the very foundation of character.

What a sense of security in an old book which Time has criticized for us!