The greatest mistake is trying to be more agreeable than you can be.

The peculiar essence of our banking system is an unprecedented trust between man and man. And when that trust is much weakened by hidden causes, a small accident may greatly hurt it, and a great accident for a moment may almost destroy it.

What impresses men is not mind, but the result of mind.

A family on the throne is an interesting idea. It brings down the pride of sovereignty to the level of petty life.

The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.

The most intellectual of men are moved quite as much by the circumstances which they are used to as by their own will. The active voluntary part of a man is very small, and if it were not economized by a sleepy kind of habit, its results would be null.

Life is not a set campaign, but an irregular work, and the main forces in it are not overt resolutions, but latent and half-involuntary promptings.