Great men, like comets, are eccentric in their courses, and formed to do extensive good by modes unintelligible to vulgar minds.
I have somewhere seen it observed that we should make the same use of a book that the bee does of a flower: she steals sweets from it, but does not injure it.
Be real and adjust you strategy according to honest results.
Revenge is fever in our own blood, to be cured only by letting the blood of another; but the remedy too often produces a relapse, which is remorse--a malady far more dreadful than the first disease, because it is incurable.
What would you do if you knew for sure that no one would ever find out?
Hope is a prodigal young heir, and experience is his banker.
A fool is often as dangerous to deal with as a knave, and always more incorrigible.
A hug is worth a thousand words.
Commerce flourishes by circumstances, precarious, transitory, contingent, almost as the winds and waves that bring it to our shores.
Some read to think, these are rare; some to write, these are common; and some read to talk, and these form the great majority.
The more gross the fraud the more glibly will it go down, and the more greedily be swallowed, since folly will always find faith where impostors will find imprudence.
Deliberate with caution, but act with decision and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness.
There is nothing more imprudent than excessive prudence.
Women that are the least bashful are often the most modest.
Temperate men drink the most, because they drink the longest.
Suicide sometimes proceeds from cowardice, but not always; for cowardice sometimes prevents it; since as many live because they are afraid to die, as die because they are afraid to live.
It is not every man that can afford to wear a shabby coat.
We know the effects of many things, but the cause of few; experience, therefore, is a surer guide than imagination, and inquiry than conjecture.
Is there anything more tedious than the often repeated tales of the old and forgetful?
To cure us of our immoderate love of gain, we should seriously consider how many goods there are that money will not purchase, and these the best; and how many evils there are that money will not remedy, and these the worst.
Times of great calamity and confusion have been productive for the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace. The brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm.
Constant success shows us but one side of the world; adversity brings out the reverse of the picture.
There is a diabolical trio existing in the natural man, implacable, inextinguishable, co-operative and consentaneous, pride, envy, and hate; pride that makes us fancy we deserve all the goods that others possess; envy that some should be admired while we are overlooked; and hate, because all that is bestowed on others, diminishes the sum we think due to ourselves.
Theories are private property, but truth is common stock.
The reason why great men meet with so little pity or attachment in adversity, would seem to be this: the friends of a great man were made by his fortune, his enemies by himself, and revenge is a much more punctual paymaster than gratitude.
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