The true measure of your character is what you do when nobody's watching.

Gross and vulgar minds will always pay a higher respect to wealth than to talent; for wealth, although it be a far less efficient source of power than talent, happens to be far more intelligible.

To diminish envy, let us consider not what others possess, but what they enjoy; mere riches may be the gift of lucky accident or blind chance, but happiness must be the result of prudent preference and rational design; the highest happiness then can have no other foundation than the deepest wisdom; and the happiest fool is only as happy as he knows how to be.

The acquirements of science may be termed the armour of the mind; but that armour would be worse than useless, that cost us all we had, and left us nothing to defend.

Moderation is the inseparable companion of wisdom, but with it genius has not even a nodding acquaintance.

A man who knows the world will not only make the most of everything he does know, but of many things he does not know, and will gain more credit by his adroit mode of hiding his ignorance than the pedant by his awkward attempt to exhibit his erudition.

There are three difficulties in authorship;-to write any thing worth the publishing-to find honest men to publish it -and to get sensible men to read it. Literature has now become a game; in which the Booksellers are the Kings; The Critics the Knaves; the Public, the Pack; and the poor Author, the mere table, or the Thing played upon.