As a rule, there is no surer way to the dislike of men than to behave well where they have behaved badly.

What children we are, even the wisest! When God walks the earth, his steps are often centuries apart.

Pure wisdom always directs itself towards God; the purest wisdom is knowledge of God.

As a rule, he fights well who has wrongs to redress; but vastly better fights he who, with wrongs as a spur, has also steadily before him a glorious result in prospect--a result in which he can discern balm for wounds, compensation for valor, remembrance and gratitude in the event of death.

A man thirty years old, I said to myself, should have his field of life all ploughed, and his planting well done; for after that it is summer time.

This soldiering thing sadly deadens that very good thing, humanity.

When people are lonely they stoop to any companionship.