There is no one who does not exaggerate!

But whoso is heroic must find crises to try his edge. Human virtue demands her champions and martyrs, and the trial of persecution always proceeds.

Only be admonished by what you already see, not to strike leagues of friendship with cheap persons, where no friendship can be. Our impatience betrays us into rash and foolish alliances which no God attends.

A seashell should be the crest of England, not only because it represents a power built on the waves, but also the hard finish ofthe men. The Englishman is finished like a cowry or a murex.

A great man scarcely knows how he dines, how he dresses; but without railing or precision, his living is natural and poetic.

Every industrious man, in every lawful calling, is a useful man. And one principal reason why men are so often useless is that they neglect their own profession or calling, and divide and shift their attention among a multiplicity of objects and pursuits.

The meaning of good and bad, of better and worse, is simply helping or hurting.