Charity, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Next to putting it in a bank, men like to squander their superfluous wealth on those to whom it is sure to be doing the least possible good.

A great chess-player is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it. No act terminating in itself constitutes greatness. This will apply to all displays of power or trials of skill, which are confined to the momentary, individual effort, and construct no permanent image or trophy of themselves without them

To die is only to be as we were before we were born; yet no one feels any remorse, or regret, or repugnance, in contemplating this last idea.

Most of the methods for measuring the lapse of time have, I believe, been the contrivance of monks and religious recluses, who, finding time hang heavy on their hands, were at some pains to see how they got rid of it.

No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.

We talk little when we do not talk about ourselves.

We do not like our friends the worse because they sometimes give us an opportunity to rail at them heartily. Their faults reconcile us to their virtues.