Intercourse is after all man's best teacher. "Know thyself" is an excellent maxim; but even self-knowledge cannot be perfected in closets and cloisters--nor amid lake scenery, and on the sunny side of the mountains. Men who seldom mix with their fellow-creatures are almost sure to be one-sided--the victims of fixed ideas, that sometimes lead to insanity.

Criminals are opportunists. If you've got a booming market, they're going to get away with more fraud.

A great deal of the joy of life consists in doing perfectly, or at least to the best of one's ability, everything which one attempts to do. There is a sense of satisfaction, a pride in surveying such a work, a work which is rounded, full, exact, complete in all its parts-which the superficial man, who leaves his work in a slovenly, slipshod, half-finished condition can never know. It is this conscientious completeness which turns work into art. The smallest thing, well done, becomes artistic.

One well-cultivated talent, deepened and enlarged, is worth one hundred shallow faculties.

Talking, is a digestive process which is absolutely essential to the mental constitution of the man who devours many books.

The smallest thing, well done, becomes artistic.

The easiest way for me to lose interests is to know too much of what I want to say before I begin.