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.

In every particular state of the world, those nations which are strongest tend to prevail over the others; and in certain marked peculiarities the strongest tend to be the best.

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

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

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.

A princely marriage is the brilliant edition of a universal fact, and, as such, it rivets mankind.

Writers like teeth are divided into incisors and grinders.