Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them. - Samuel Butler

It is tact that is golden, not silence.

Happiness and misery consist in a progression towards better or worse; it does not matter how high up or low down you are, it depends not on this, but on the direction in which you are tending.

we must judge men not so much by what they, as by what they make us feel that they have it in them to do. If a man has done enough in either painting, music, or the affairs of life, to make me feel that I might trust him in an emergency he has done enough