The chief mourner does not always attend the funeral.

When we see a special reformer we feel like asking him, What right have you, sir, to your own virtue? Is virtue piecemeal?

The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already done singly will justify you now. Greatness appeals to the future.

Fame is proof that the people are gullible.

When there is sympathy, there needs but one wise man in a company and all are wise,--so, a blockhead makes a blockhead of his companion. Wonderful power to benumb possesses this brother.

Napoleon said of Massena, that he was not himself until the battle began to go against him; then, when the dead began to fall in ranks around him, awoke his powers of combination, and he put on terror and victory as a robe.

Everything is prospective, and man is to live hereafter. That the world is for his education is the only sane solution of the enigma.