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.

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.

Even supposing there were some spiritual advantage in celibacy, it ought to be completely voluntary.

Trust, therefore, for the overcoming of a difficulty, not to long-continued study after you have once become bewildered, but to repeated trials at intervals.

Some men's reputation seems like seed-wheat, which thrives best when brought from a distance.

Of metaphors, those generally conduce most to energy or vivacity of style which illustrate an intellectual by a sensible object.

It is one thing to wish to have truth on our side, and another to wish sincerely to be on the side of truth.