There is something frightful in the way in which not only characteristic qualities, but particular manifestations of them, are repeated from generation to generation.

Young men know the rules, but old men know the exceptions.

Society is always trying in some way to grind us down to a single flat surface.

The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books.

To know is not less than to feel.

One of the eternal conflicts out of which life is made up is that between the effort of every man to get the most he can for his services, and that of society, disguised under the name of capital, to get his services for the least possible return.

To be forgotten is to sleep in peace with the undisturbed myriads, no longer subject to the chills and heats, the blasts, the sleet, the dust, which assail in endless succession that shadow of a man which we call his reputation.