The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.
Adversity is, to me at least, a tonic and a bracer.
The race of mankind would perish did they cease to aid each other. We cannot exist without mutual help. All therefore that need aid have a right to ask it from their fellow-men; and no one who has the power of granting can refuse it without guilt.
Of all vices, drinking is the most incompatible with greatness.
Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude.
A rusty nail placed near a faithful compass, will sway it from the truth, and wreck the argosy.
It is wonderful what strength of purpose and boldness and energy of will are roused by the assurance that we are doing our duty.
Faces that have charmed us the most escape us the soonest.
'Twas Christmas broach'd the mightiest ale; 'twas Christmas told the merriest tale; a Christmas gambol oft could cheer the poor man's heart through half the year.
The will to do, the soul to dare.
Credit is like a looking-glass, which when once sullied by a breath, may be wiped clear again; but if once cracked can never be repaired.
Come he slow or come he fast. It is but death who comes at last.
Death -- the last sleep? No, it is the final awakening.
Is death the last step? No, it is the final awakening.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.
If you once turn on your side after the hour at which you ought to rise, it is all over. Bolt up at once.
There never will exist anything permanently noble and excellent in the character which is a stranger to resolute self-denial.
The faces that have charmed us the most escape us the soonest.
If you have no friends to share or rejoice in your success in life -- if you cannot look back to those whom you owe gratitude, or forward to those to whom you ought to afford protection, still it is no less incumbent on you to move steadily in the path of duty; for your active excretions are due not only to society; but in humble gratitude to the Being who made you a member of it, with powers to save yourself and others.
To the timid and hesitating everything is impossible because it seems so.
A lawyer without history or literature is a mechanic, a mere working mason; if he possesses some knowledge of these, he may venture to call himself an architect.
Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife! To all the sensual world proclaim. One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name.
When thinking about companions gone, we feel ourselves doubly alone.
Each age has deemed the new-born year the fittest time for festal cheer.
One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum, in which men steal through existence, like sluggish waters through a marsh, without either honor or observation.
Look back, and smile at perils past.
Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land!
Teach you children poetry; it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes the heroic virtues hereditary.
But with morning cool repentance came.
We build statues out of snow, and weep to see them melt.
Ridicule often checks what is absurd, and fully as often smothers that which is noble.