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

We should round every day of stirring action with an evening of thought. We learn nothing of our experience except we muse upon it.

In politics, merit is rewarded by the possessor being raised, like a target, to a position to be fired at.

Men, like musical instruments, seem made to be played upon.

A mother is the best friend God ever gave.

It is only an error of judgment to make a mistake, but it argues an infirmity of character to adhere to it when discovered.

Words of praise, indeed, are almost as necessary to warm a child into a genial life as acts of kindness and affection. Judicious praise is to children what the sun is to flowers.

It is our relation to circumstances that determines their influence upon us.

All men are alike in their lower natures; it is in their higher characters that they differ.

It is ever the invisible that is the object of our profoundest worship. With the lover it is not the seen but the unseen that he muses upon.

It is with a company as it is with a punch, everything depends upon the ingredients of which it in composed.

Enthusiasm is the inspiration of everything great.

There are some kinds of men who cannot pass their time alone; they are the flails of occupied people.There are few wild beasts more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate.

Like the withered roses of a once gay garland, the feelings of youth command in age a melancholy interest.

Partial culture runs to the ornate, extreme culture to simplicity.

To be without sympathy is to be alone in the world–without friends or country, home or kindred.

Excessive sensibility is only another name for morbid self-consciousness.

Few men realize that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings.

Most men like in women what is most opposite their own characters.

Firmness in enduring and exertion is a character I always wish to possess. I have always despised the whining yelp of complaint and cowardly resolve.

Revision has its own peculiar pleasures and its own peculiar frustrations. The ground rules are already established; the characters already exist. You don’t have to bring the characters to life, but you do have to make them more convincing.

Of the many smells of Athens two seem to me the most characteristic – that of garlic, bold and deadly like acetylene gas. and that of dust, soft and warm and caressing like tweed.

Spirituality helps develop good character. It is character that shines bright when words fail to do so.

It is simply wrong to begin with a theme, symbol or other abstract unifying agent, and then try to force characters and events to conform to it.

The Affordable Care Act’s requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax.