“Goodness is the only investment that never fails.”

“Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant's truce between virtue and vice. Goodness is the only investment that never fails.”

“In the long run men only hit what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high.”

“Men are born to succeed, not to fail.”

“Yet, for my part, I was never usually squeamish; I could sometimes eat a fried rat with a good relish, if it were necessary. I am glad to have drunk water so long, for the same reason that I prefer the natural sky to an opium-eater’s heaven. I would fain keep sober always; and there are infinite degrees of drunkenness. I believe that water is the only drink for a wise man; wine is not so noble a liquor; and think of dashing the hopes of a morning with a cup of warm coffee, or of an evening with a dish of tea! Ah, how low I fail when I am tempted by them! Even music may be intoxicating. Such apparently slight causes destroyed Greece and Rome, and will destroy England and America. Of all ebriosity, who does not prefer to be intoxicated by the air he breathes?”

“Follow your genius closely enough, and it will not fail to show you a fresh prospect every hour.”

“Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure.”