Annual income, twenty pounds; annual expenditure, nineteen pounds, result, happiness. Annual income, twenty pounds; annual expenditure, twenty-one pounds; result, misery.

Any man may be in good spirits and good temper when he's well dressed. There ain't much credit in that.

Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.

I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day of the week, if there is anything to be got by it.

It's over, and can't be helped, and that's one consolation, as they always say in Turkey, when they cut the wrong man's head off.

It was as true as taxes is. And nothing is truer than them.

It will be very generally found that those who will sneer habitually at human nature, and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant samples.

Let no man turn aside, ever so slightly, from the broad path of honor, on the plausible pretence that he is justified by the goodness of his end. All good ends can be worked out by good means.

Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.

Their ... demeanour is invariably morose, sullen, clownish and repulsive. I should think there is not, on the face of the earth, a people so entirely destitute of humour, vivacity, or the capacity of enjoyment. (on Americans)