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

Time ... advances like the slowest tide, but retreats like the swiftest torrent.

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

In order to try whether a vessel be leaky, we first prove it with water before we trust it with wine.

Of all the passions, jealousy is that which exacts the hardest service, and pays the bitterest wages. Its service is to watch the success of one's enemy; its wages to be sure of it.

Men spend their lives in anticipations,—in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other—it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future have not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.

He who knows himself knows others.