Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live.

Deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.

Our strength grows out of our weakness.

In self-trust all the virtues are comprehended.

The art of conversation, or the qualification for a good companion, is a certain self-control, which now holds the subject, now lets it go, with a respect for the emergencies of the moment.

Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world. I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is not an apology, but a life.

I have heard that death takes us away from ill things, not from good. I have heard that when we pronounce the name of man we pronounce the belief of immortality.