Be studious in your profession, and you will be learned. Be industrious and frugal, and you will be rich. Be sober and temperate, and you will be healthy. Be in general virtuous, and you will be happy.

I scarce ever heard or saw the introductory words, "Without vanity I may say," etc., but some vain thing immediately followed.

Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.

Love and toothache have many cures, but none infallible, except possession and dispossession.

In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the small-pox, taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly, and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of parents who omit that operation, on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it; my example showing that the regret may be the same either way, and that, therefore, the safer should be chosen.

Take a coin from your purse and invest it in your mind. It will come pouring out of your mind and overflow your purse.