Manners are the ornament of action.

Marriage like government is a series of compromises. One must give and take, repair and restrain, endure and be patient.

The reason why so little is done, is generally because so little is attempted.

For want of self-restraint many men are engaged all their lives in fighting with difficulties of their own making.

National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice.

Experience serves to prove that the worth and strength of a state depend far less upon the form of its institutions than upon the character of its men; for the nation is only the aggregate of individual conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of personal, improvement.

Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.