The secret of ugliness consists not in irregularity, but in being uninteresting. We talk of deviations from human form, but the truly repulsive is the face that has no character, that is habitual.

We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its little scar. The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, 'I won't count this time!' Well, he may not count it, and a kind Heaven may not count it; but it is being counted none the less.

The best way to achieve a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear. Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us. But in business, the dangerous gap opens when you begin managing the reputation rather than the underlying reality.

The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition. And yet it is precisely in the collision between our designs and reality's indifference that character is forged — not in triumph, but in the willingness to begin again.

The fate of the country does not depend on how you vote at the polls — the worst man is as strong as the best at that game; it does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot-box once a year, but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. But habit itself is not merely repetition — it is the slow carving of character, the way water shapes stone not by force but by persistence.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

The best way to get what you want is to deserve what you want. It's as simple as that.

The great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

The best way to get what you want is to deserve what you want. It's as simple as that. If you deserve it, you'll get it. If you don't deserve it, you probably won't.