A stable, changeless state, 'twere cause indeed to weep.

I shall seeThe hour of death draw near to me,Hope, blossoming within my heart. . . .

Winning isn't everything, but it beats anything in second place.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join, The innumerable caravan which moves, To that mysterious realm where each shall take, His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, Scourged by his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed, By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch, About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

War, like all other situations of danger and of change, calls forth the exertion of admirable intellectual qualities and great virtues, and it is only by dwelling on these, and keeping out of sight the sufferings and sorrows, and all the crimes and evils that follow in its train, that it has its glory in the eyes of men.

Look on this beautiful world, and read the truth in her fair page.

Self-interest is the most ingenious and persuasive of all the agents that deceive our consciences, while by means of it our unhappy and stubborn prejudices operate in their greatest force.