The effect of character is always to command consideration. We sport and toy and laugh with men or women who have none, but we never confide in them.

Distinction is an eminence that is attained but too frequently at the expense of a fireside.

It is a bird-flight of the soul, when the heart declares itself in song. The affections that clothe themselves with wings are passions that have been subdued to virtues.

The apothegm is the most portable form of Truth.... It is thus that the proverb answers where the sermon fails, as a well-charged pistol will do more execution than a whole barrel of gunpowder idly expended in the air.

Most men remember obligations, but not often to be grateful; the proud are made sour by the remembrance and the vain silent.

Vanity is so constantly solicitous of self, that even where its own claims are not interested, it indirectly seeks the aliment which it loves, by showing how little is deserved by others.

Modesty is policy, no less than virtue.