It is well for us that we are born babies in intellect. Could we understand half what mothers say and do to their infants, we should be filled with a conceit of our own importance, which would render us insupportable through life.

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. It is wholesome and bracing for the mind to have its faculties kept of the stretch.

Man is a mixed being, made up of a spiritual soul and of a fleshly body; the angels are pure spirits, herein nearer to God, only that they are created and finite in all respects, free from decay, free from the power of death, whereas God is infinite and uncreated.

A man prone to suspect evil is mostly looking in his neighbor for what he sees in himself.

Crimes sometimes shock us too much; vices almost always too little.

Friendship closes its eye rather than see the moon eclipsed; while malice denies that it is ever at the full.

What hypocrites we seem to be whenever we talk of ourselves! Our words sound so humble, while our hearts are so proud.