The best aphorisms are.... portable wisdom, the quintessential extracts of thought and feeling. They furnish the largest amount of intellectual stimulus and nutriment in the smallest compass. About every weak point in human nature, or vicious spot in human life, there is deposited a crystallization of warning and protective proverbs.

Reserve may be pride fortified in ice; dignity is worth reposing on truth.

Words of love are works of love.

The most terrible of all things is terror.

The line of life is a ragged diagonal between duty and desire.

Fate is the friend of the good, the guide of the wise, the tyrant of the foolish, the enemy of the bad.

The devil may be bullied, but not the Deity.