One is always more vexed at losing a game of any sort by a single hole or ace, than if one has never had a chance of winning it.

Some one is generally sure to be the sufferer by a joke.

You shall yourself be judge. Reason, with most people, means their own opinion.

Genius is native to the soil where it grows — is fed by the air, and warmed by the sun — and is not a hot - house plant or an exotic.

To be wiser than other men is to be honester than they; and strength of mind is only courage to see and speak the truth.

Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy. Action is no less necessary than thought to the instinctive tendencies of the human frame.

A life of action and danger moderates the dread of death. It not only gives us fortitude to bear pain, but teaches us at every step the precarious tenure on which we hold our present being.