“Enthusiasm is the inspiration of everything great. Without it no man is to be feared, and with it none despised.”

If it is a distinction to have written a good book, it is also a disgrace to have written a bad one.

Dignity of position adds to dignity of character, as well as to dignity of carriage. Give us a proud position, and we are impelled to act up to it.

Genius makes its observations in short-hand; talent writes them out at length.

Successful love takes a load off our hearts, and puts it upon our shoulders.

We make way for the man who boldly pushes past us.

Without death in the world, existence in it would soon become, through over-population, the most frightful of curses.

Difficulties, by bracing the mind to overcome them, assist cheerfulness, as exercise assists digestion.

Nothing is so fragile as thought in its infancy; an interruption breaks it: nothing is so powerful, even to overturning empires, when it reaches its maturity.

It is the nature of thought to find its way into action.

When all else is lost, the future still remains.

Courage enlarges, cowardice diminishes resources.

The most brilliant flashes of wit come from a clouded mind, as lightning leaps only from an obscure firmament.

Poverty is only contemptible when it is felt to be so. Doubtless the best way to make our poverty respectable is to seem never to feel it as an evil.

A woman’s love, like lichens upon a rock, will still grow where even charity can find no soil to nurture itself.

Something of a person’s character may be observed by how they smile. Some never smile they only grin.

The loveliest faces are to be seen by moonlight, when one sees half with the eye and half with the fancy.

Practice being excited.

Undervaluations caused by neglect or prejudice may persist for an inconveniently long time, and the same applies to inflated prices caused by over-enthusiasm or artificial stimulants.

Martyrdom was the price of enthusiasm for acting.

Enthusiasm is the electric current that keeps the engine of life going at top speed. Enthusiasm is the very propeller of progress.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. For what is enthusiasm but the oblivion and swallowing-up of self in an object dearer than self?

The fellow who isn’t fired with enthusiasm is apt to be fired.

Nothing dispels enthusiasm like a small admission fee.

Speeches made to the people are essential to the arousing of enthusiasm for a war.