It is often said that men are ruled by their imaginations; but it would be truer to say they are governed by the weakness of their imaginations.

Writers like teeth are divided into incisors and grinders.

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

The real essence of work is concentrated energy - people who really have that in a superior degree by nature are independent of the forms and habits and artifices by which less able and less active people are kept up to their labors.

Capital must be propelled by self-interest; it cannot be enticed by benevolence.

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.

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