The seat of perfect contentment is in the head; for every individual is thoroughly satisfied with his own proportion of brains.

Grant graciously what you cannot refuse safely and conciliate those you cannot conquer.

The rich are more envied by those who have a little, than by those who have nothing.

It is astonishing how much more people are interested in lengthening life than improving it.

All who have been great and good without Christianity would have been much greater and better with it. If there be, amongst the sons of men, a single exception to this maxim, the divine Socrates may be allowed to put in the strongest claim. It was his high ambition to deserve, by deeds, not by creeds, an unrevealed heaven, and by works, not by faith, to enter an unpromised land.

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

Constant success shows us but one side of the world; adversity brings out the reverse of the picture.