Because impudence is a vice, it does not follow that modesty is a virtue; it is built upon shame, a passion in our nature, and may be either good or bad according to the actions performed from that motive.

I don't believe that there is a human creature in his senses, arrived to maturity, that at some time or other has not been carried away by this passion (sc. envy) in good earnest; yet I never met with any one who dared own he was guilty of it but in jest.

Ye children of promise who are awaiting your call to glory, take possession of the inheritance that now is yours. By faith take the promises. Live upon them, not upon emotions. Remember, feeling is not faith. Faith grasps and clings to the promises. Faith says, "I am certain, not because feeling testifies to it, but because God says it.

People of substance may sin without being exposed for their stolen pleasure; but servants and the poorer sort of women have seldom an opportunity of concealing a big belly, or at least the consequences of it.

Those who get their living by their daily labor . . . have nothing to stir them up to be serviceable but their wants which it is a prudence to relieve, but folly to cure.

Pride and vanity have built more hospitals than all the virtues together.

We seldom call anybody lazy, but such as we reckon inferior to us, and of whom we expect some service.