 A rusty nail placed near a faithful compass, will sway it from the truth, and wreck the argosy. |
| The half hour between waking and rising has all my life proved propitious to any task which was exercising my invention... It was always when I first opened my eyes that the desired ideas thronged upon me. |
| To the timid and hesitating everything is impossible because it seems so. |
| There is a vulgar incredulity, which in historical matters, as well as in those of religion, finds it easier to doubt than to examine. |
| Faces that have charmed us the most escape us the soonest. |
| 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. |
| What is a diary as a rule? A document useful to the person who keeps it. Dull to the contemporary who reads it and invaluable to the student, centuries afterwards, who treasures it. |
| Of all vices, drinking is the most incompatible with greatness. |
| Success or failure in business is caused more by the mental attitude even than by mental capacities. |
| To be ambitious of true honor, of the true glory and perfection of our natures, is the very principle and incentive of virtue. |
| It is wonderful what strength of purpose and boldness and energy of will are roused by the assurance that we are doing our duty. |
| Many miles away there's a shadow on the door of a cottage on the Shore of a dark Scottish lake. |
| He is the best sailor who can steer within fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power out of the greatest obstacles. |
| If a farmer fills his barn with grain, he gets mice. If he leaves it empty, he gets actors. |
| Each age has deemed the new-born year the fittest time for festal cheer. |
