Luther deters me from solitariness; but he does not mean from a sober solitude that rallies our scattered strengths and prepares us against any new encounter from without.

Should we grieve over a little misplaced charity, when an all knowing, all wise Being showers down every day his benefits on the unthankful and undeserving?

It is the duty of every one to strive to gain and deserve a good reputation.

Affliction is a school of virtue; it corrects levity, and interrupts the confidence of sinning.

It's attention to detail that makes the difference between average and stunning.

Hospitality sometimes degenerates into profuseness, and ends in madness and folly.

The greater absurdities are, the more strongly they evince the falsity of that supposition from whence they flow.

A good character when established should not be rested in as an end, but only employed as a means of doing still further good.

The temptations of prosperity insinuate themselves after a gentle, but very powerful manner; so that we are but little aware of them and less able to withstand them.

Even the wisdom of God hath not suggested more pressing motives, more powerful incentives to charity, than these, that we shall be judged by it at the last dreadful day.

He who performs his duty in a station of great power must needs incur the utter enmity of many, and the high displeasure of more.

The word 'Terror' is so generally and universally used in connection with everyday trivial matters that it is apt to fail to convey, when intended to do so, its real meaning.

If you’re going to be killed you invent some kind of flag and country to fight for, and if you survive you get to love the thing

No one starts a war--or rather, no one in his sense ought to do so--without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by the war and how he intends to conduct it.

My wife can see always how a part affects me personally because she has to live with it.

In an active life is sown the seed of wisdom... And age, if it has not esteem, has nothing.

Experience has taught me that the only cruelties people condemn are those with which they do not happen to be familiar.

A contra dance is like an amusement park ride we make for ourselves.

Most of the people I write about have been ambitious outlanders who have been attracted to New York from other parts of the world.

I became the voice of a generation in a very surprising way, because many Iranians recognize themselves in it. But that is not what I wanted.