It is the rule of rules, and the general law of all laws, that every person should observe those of the place where he is.

The strength of any plan depends on the time. Circumstances and things eternally shift and change.

A man should think less of what he eats and more with whom he eats because no food is so satisfying as good company.

Silence and modesty are very valuable qualities in conversation.

If to take up books were to take them in, and if to see them were to consider them, and to run through them were to grasp them, I should be wrong to make myself out quite as ignorant as I say I am.

In true education, anything that comes to our hand is as good as a book: the prank of a page- boy, the blunder of a servant, a bit of table talk - they are all part of the curriculum.

It is a small soul, buried beneath the weight of affairs, that does not know how to get clean away from them, that cannot put them aside and pick them up again.