“Of Dickens’ style it is impossible to speak in praise. It is jerky, ungrammatical, and created by himself in defiance of rules…”

And though it is much to be a nobleman, it is more to be a gentleman.

The greatest mistake any man ever made is to suppose that the good things of the world are not worth the winning.

Such young men are often awkward, ungainly, and not yet formed in their gait; they straggle with their limbs, and are shy; words do not come to them with ease, when words are required, among any but their accustomed associates.

A small dainty task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.

It’s dogged as does it. It ain’t thinking about it.

The habit of reading is the only one I know in which there is no alloy. It lasts when all other pleasures fade.

But then the pastors and men of God can only be human,–cannot altogether be men of God; and so they have oppressed us, and burned us, and tortured us, and hence come to love palaces, and fine linen, and purple, and, alas, sometimes, mere luxury and idleness.

A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.

Above all else, never think you’re not good enough.

The true picture of life as it is, if it could be adequately painted, would show men what they are, and how they might rise, not, indeed to perfection, but one step first, and then another on the ladder.

Make all men equal to-day, and God has so created them that they shall be all unequal to-morrow.

Neither money nor position can atone to me for low birth.

When a man is ill nothing is so important to him as his own illness.

It has become a certainty now that if you will only advertise sufficiently you may make a fortune by selling anything.

Passionate love, I take it, rarely lasts long, and is very troublesome while it does last. Mutual esteem is very much more valuable.

A man’s mind will very gradually refuse to make itself up until it is driven and compelled by emergency.

Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth). Make the growth choice a dozen times a day.

Strength lies not in defense but in the attack.

Defense is a definite part of the game, and a great part of defense is learning to play it without fouling.

It is that we are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love, never no helplessly unhappy as when we have lost our loved object of its love.

Only doubtful truths need defense.

Knowing the enemy enables you to take the offensive, knowing yourself enables you to stand on the defensive.

For there is no defense for a man who, in the excess of his wealth, has kicked the great altar of Justice out of sight.

The best offense needs the best defense.