Lew Wallace - Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880)

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For power, you know, is a fickle thing and always has its wings spread for flight.

Lew Wallace

A man thirty years old, I said to myself, should have his field of life all ploughed, and his planting well done; for after that it is summer time.

Lew Wallace

There is no law by which to determine the superiority of nations; hence the vanity of the claim, and the idleness of disputes about it. A people risen, run their race, and die either of themselves or in the hands of another, who, succeeding to their power, take possession of their place, and upon their monuments write new names; such is history.

Lew Wallace

The monuments of the nations are all protests against nothingness after death; so are statues and inscriptions; so is history.

Lew Wallace

Sympathy is in great degree a result of the mood we are in at the moment; anger forbids the emotion. On the other hand, it is easiest taken on when we are in a state of most absolute self-satisfaction.

Lew Wallace

As a rule, he fights well who has wrongs to redress; but vastly better fights he who, with wrongs as a spur, has also steadily before him a glorious result in prospect--a result in which he can discern balm for wounds, compensation for valor, remembrance and gratitude in the event of death.

Lew Wallace