The one prudence in life is concentration; the one evil is dissipation: and it makes no difference whether our dissipations are coarse or fine; property and its cares, friends and a social habit, or politics, or music, or feasting. Everything is good which takes away one plaything and delusion more, and drives us home to add one stroke of faithful work.

The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end.

In the last analysis, love is only the reflection of a man's own worthiness from other men.

We must be our own before we can be another's.

There is always a best way of doing everything, if it be to boil an egg. Manners are the happy ways of doing things.

It does not to dwell on dreams and forget to live, but it is equally foolish to ignore the past – never forget.

The wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting.