The same ambition can destroy or save, and make a patriot as it makes a knave.
Many men have been capable of doing a wise thing, more a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing.
True self-love and social are the same.
Is there a parson much bemused in beer, a maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer, a clerk foredoom'd his father's soul to cross, who pens a stanza when he should engross?
Say first, of god above or man below; what can we reason but from what we know.
Judge not of actions by their mere effect; Dive to the center, and the cause detect. Great deeds from meanest springs may take their course, And smallest virtues from a mighty source.