As the grand discordant harmony of the celestial bodies may be explained by the simple principles of gravity and impulse, so also in that more wonderful and complicated microcosm, the heart of man, all the phenomena of morals are perhaps resolvable into one single principle, the pursuit of apparent good; for although customs universally vary, yet man in all climates and countries is essentially the same.

As the gout seems privileged to attack the bodies of the wealthy, so ennui seems to exert a similar prerogative over their minds.

Success seems to be that which forms the distinction between confidence and conceit.

Falsehood, like a drawing in perspective, will not bear to be examined in every point of view, because it is a good imitation of truth, as a perspective is of the reality, only in one. But truth, like that reality of which the perspective is the representation, will bear to be scrutinized in all points of view, and though examined under every situation, is one and the same.

In pulpit eloquence, the grand difficulty lies here--to give the subject all the dignity it so fully deserves, without attaching any importance to ourselves. The Christian messenger cannot think too highly of his prince, nor too humbly of himself.

The excesses of our youth are drafts upon our old age.

He that swells in prosperity will be sure to shrink in adversity.