Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it, the tree is the real thing.

If it is any use to know it, I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eighths of it under water for every part that shows.

So it is more useful to watch a man in time of peril, and in adversity to discern what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask it torn off, reality remains.

Let me give you a tip on a clue to men’s characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.

Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.

People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I've learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one's reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one's master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person's view requires to be faked.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness for the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in.

Rest satisfied with doing well, and leave others to talk of you as they will.

An undutiful daughter will prove an unmanageable wife.

You shall judge of a man by his foes as well as by his friends.