Some people read for instruction, which is praiseworthy, and some for pleasure, which is innocent, but not a few read from habit, and I suppose that this is neither innocent or praiseworthy. Of that lamentable company am I. Conversation after a time bores me, games tire me and my own thoughts, which we are told are the unfailing resource of a sensible man, have a tendency to run dry. Then I fly to my book as the opium-smoker to his pipe.

Life is so largely controlled by chance that its conduct can be but a perpetual improvisation.

Common sense and nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult.

Refecting on the high divorce rate in America as contrasted with England "American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers

There are two good things in life - freedom of thought and freedom of action.

Through the history of the world there have always been exploiters and exploited. There always will be ... because the great mass of men are made by nature to be slaves, they are unfit to control themselves, and for their own good need masters.

He found that it was easy to make a heroic gesture, but hard to abide by its results.