The basis of good manners is self-reliance. Necessity is the law of all who are not self-possessed.

The highest proof of civility is that the whole public action of the State is directed on securing the greatest good of the greatest number.

There is one topic peremptorily forbidden to all well-bred, to all rational mortals, namely, their distempers. If you have not slept or if you have slept or if you have head ache or sciatica or leprosy or thunder-stroke, I beseech you, by all angels, to hold your peace and not pollute the morning.

The student is to read history actively and not passively.

Some men are born to own, and can animate all their possessions. Others cannot: their owning is not graceful; seems to be a compromise of their character: they seem to steal their own dividends.

Pride eradicates all vices but itself.

There is no luck in literary reputation. They who make up the final verdict upon every book are not the partial and noisy readers of the hour when it appears; but a court as of angels, a public not to be bribed, not to be entreated, and not to be overawed, decides upon every man's title to fame.