Not in books only, nor yet in oral discourse, but often also in words there are boundless stores of moral and historic truth, and no less of passion and imagination laid up, from which lessons of infinite worth may be derived.

Men first make up their minds (and the smaller the mind the sooner made up), and then seek for the reasons; and if they chance to stumble upon a good reason, of course they do not reject it. But though they are right, they are only right by chance.

As one may bring himself to believe almost anything he is inclined to believe, it makes all the difference whether we begin or end with the inquiry, 'What is truth?'

As the flower is before the fruit, so is faith before good works.

To be always thinking about your manners is not the way to make them good; the very perfection of manners is not to think about yourself.

Neither human applause nor human censure is to be taken as the best of truth; but either should set us upon testing ourselves.

Those who relish the study of character may profit by the reading of good works of fiction, the product of well-established authors.