Surely nobody would be a charlatan, who could afford to be sincere.

Let the realist not mind appearances. Let him delegate to others the costly courtesies and decorations of social life. The virtuesare economists, but some of the vices are also. Thus, next to humility, I have noticed that pride is a pretty good husband. A good pride is, as I reckon it, worth from five hundred to fifteen hundred a year.

Things have their laws as well as men, and things refuse to be trifled with.

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

One single idea may have greater weight than all the men, animals, and machines for a century.

Cut these words and they would bleed; they are vascular and alive.

Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinction. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit. It is like ice, on which no beauty of form, no majesty of carriage, can plead any immunity; they must walk gingerly, according to the laws of ice, or down they must go, dignity and all.