“Fortune may raise up or abuse the ordinary mortal, but the sage and the soldier should have minds beyond her control.”

Good Night, Goodnight, Dream.

Silence, maiden; thy tongue outruns thy discretion.

Blessed be his name, who hath appointed the quiet night to follow the busy day, and the calm sleep to refresh the wearied limbs and to compose the troubled spirit.

It is only when I dally with what I am about, look back and aside, instead of keeping my eyes straight forward, that I feel these cold sinkings of the heart.

All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.

Caution comes too late when we are in the midst of evils.

I have heard men talk about the blessings of freedom, he said to himself, but I wish any wise man would teach me what use to make of it now that I have it.

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.

Look back, and smile on perils past.

Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can, Come saddle your horses, and call up your men; Come open the West Port, and let me gang free, And it’s room for the bonnets of Bonny Dundee!

Then hush thee, my darling, take rest while you may, For strife comes with manhood, and waking with day.

Greatness of any kind has no greater foe than a habit of drinking.

When true friends meet in adverse hour; ‘Tis like a sunbeam through a shower. A watery way an instant seen, The darkly closing clouds between.

To the timid and hesitating everything is impossible because it seems so.

I like a highland friend who will stand by me not only when I am in the right, but when I am a little in the wrong.

And better had they ne’er been born, Who read to doubt, or read to scorn.