In our judgment of men, we are to beware of giving any great importance to occasional acts. By acts of occasional virtue weak men endeavour to redeem… - Henry Taylor

I have not skill
From such a sharp and waspish word as "No"
To pluck the sting.

Such souls,
Whose sudden visitations daze the world,
Vanish like lighting, but they leave behind
A voice that in the distance far away
Wakens the slumbering ages.

The craving for office with which statesmen are so often reproached is, perhaps, in the more active of them, quite as much a craving for business as for emolument or power; and their unseasonable love of business grows out of their forfeiture of the love of leisure. Rarely as well as fortunately endowed by nature is that man who can love one or the other according to his occasions.