“The wooden wall alone should remain unconquered.”

The man of affluence is not in fact more happy than the possessor of a bare competency, unless, in addition to his wealth, the end of his life be fortunate. We often see misery dwelling in the midst of splendour, whilst real happiness is found in humbler stations.

As the old saw says well: every end does not appear together with its beginning. It’s impossible for someone who is human to have all good things together, just as there is no single country able to provide all good things for itself.

Chances rule men and not men chances.

How can a monarchy be a suitable thing, which allows a man to do as he pleases with none to hold him to account. And even if you were to take the best man on earth, and put him into a monarchy, you put outside him the thoughts that usually guide him.

All men’s gains are the fruit of venturing.

Force has no place where there is need of skill.

When life is so burdensome death has become a sought after refuge.

Illness strikes men when they are exposed to change.

There is nothing more foolish, nothing more given to outrage than a useless mob.

The Lacedaemonians fought a memorable battle; they made it quite clear that they were the experts, and that they were fighting against amateurs.

We are less convinced by what we hear than by what we see.

Circumstances rule men; men do not rule circumstances.

The worst part a man can suffer is to have insight into much and power over nothing.

If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.

My men have become women, but the women men.

The worst pain a man can have is to know much and be impotent to act.

We did not all come over on the same ship, but we are all in the same boat.

In my grammar school years back in the 1920s I used my ten-cents-a-week allowance for Saturday matinees of Douglas Fairbanks movies. All that swashbuckling and leaping about in the midst of the sails of ships!

Politicians are like ships: noisiest when lost in a fog.

All we had aboard the ship that morning was one Annapolis graduate and three reserves.

The captain doesn’t think about death, or life, he thinks about saving his ship.

The man without religion is as a ship without a rudder.