There is no such test of a man’s superiority of character as in the well-conducting of an unavoidable quarrel.

We figure to ourselves The thing we like; and then we build it up, As chance will have it, on the rock or sand,- For thought is tired of wandering o’er the world, And homebound Fancy runs her bark ashore.

Prodigality is indeed the vice of a weak nature, as avarice is of a strong one; it comes of a weak craving for those blandishments of the world which are easily to be had for money, and which, when obtained, are as much worse than worthless as a harlot’s love is worse than none.

I have not skillFrom such a sharp and waspish word as “No”To pluck the sting.

The art of living easily as to money is to pitch your scale of living one degree below your means.

He who gives only what he would as readily throw away, gives without generosity; for the essence of generosity is in self-sacrifice.

Of all the uses of adversity which are sweet, none are sweeter than those which grow out of disappointed love...

Wisdom is corrupted by ambition, even when the quality of the ambition is intellectual. For ambition, even of this quality, is but a form of self-love...

A secret may be sometimes best kept by keeping the secret of its being a secret. It is not many years since a State secret of the greatest importance was printed without being divulged, merely by sending it to the press like any other matter, and trusting to the mechanical habits of the persons employed. They printed it piecemeal in ignorance of what it was about.

If you know how a man deals with his money, how he gets it, spends it, keeps it, shares it, you know one of the most important things about him.