Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others; it is a fatal but common error. Where one has been saved by a true estimation of another's weakness, thousands have been destroyed by a false appreciation of their own strength.

Patience is the support of weakness; impatience the ruin of strength.

With books, as with companions, it is of more consequence to know which to avoid, than which to choose; for good books are as scarce as good companions...

It is always easy to shut a book, but not quite so easy to get rid of a lettered coxcomb.

He that has energy enough to root out a vice should go further, and try to plant a virtue in its place.

The firmest of friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame.

In politics, as in religion, it so happens, that we have less charity for those who believe the half of our creed, than for those that deny the whole of it; since if Servetus had been a Mohammedan, he would not have been burnt by Calvin.