Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.
To promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.
To believe yourself brave is to be brave; it is the one only essential thing.
To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
There are two times in a man’s life when he should not speculate: when he can’t afford it, and when he can.
There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice.
There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one: keep from telling their happinesses to the unhappy.
The world is made wrong; kings should go to school to their own laws, at times, and so learn mercy.
The timid man yearns for full value and asks a tenth. The bold man strikes for double value and compromises on par.
The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.
The poetry was all in the anticipation – there is none in the reality.
