The entire merit of a man can never be made known; nor the sum of his demerits, if he have them. We are only known by our names; as letters sealed up….

Ah! the best righteousness of our man-of-war world seems but an unrealized ideal, after all; and those maxims which, in the hope of bringing about a ….

A thing may be incredible and still be true; sometimes it is incredible because it is true..

Better be an old maid, a woman with herself as a husband, than the wife of a fool; and Solomon more than hints that all men are fools; and every wise….

Be sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease..

Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a calmness; and our poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too much for that..

See how elastic our prejudices grow when once love comes to bend them..

Nearly all literature, in one sense, is made up of guide-books. Old ones tell us the ways our fathers went, through the thoroughfares and courts of o….

For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books..

Whatever my fate, I'll go to it laughing..

Erie, and Ontario, and Huron, and Superior, and Michigan possess an ocean-like expansiveness, with many of the ocean's noblest traits... they are swe….

We incline to think that God cannot explain His own secrets and that He would like a little information upon certain points Himself. We mortals asto….

For in tremendous extremities human souls are like drowning men; well enough they know they are in peril; well enough they know the causes of that pe….

To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living..

He knows himself, and all that's in him, who knows adversity..

...The silent reminiscence of hardships departed, is sweeter than the presence of delight..

Only the man who says no is free.

Ignorance is the father of all fear..

There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes his whole universe for a vast practical joke..

contempt is as frequently produced at first sight as love..

He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness. And if it be said, that continual success is a p….