He that studies books alone, will know how things ought to be; and he that studies men, will know how things are.

Shining outward qualities, although they may excite first-rate expectations, are not unusually found to be the companions of second-rate abilities.

Habit will reconcile us to everything but change

Avarice has ruined more souls than extravagance.

The true motives of our actions, like the real pipes of an organ, are usually concealed; but the gilded and hollow pretext is pompously placed in the front for show.

Those who have resources within themselves, who can dare to live alone, want friends the least, but, at the same time, best know how to prize them the most. But no company is far preferable to bad, because we are more apt to catch the vices of others than their virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.

No man can promise himself even fifty years of life, but any man may, if he please, live in the proportion of fifty years in forty-let him rise early, that he may have the day before him, and let him make the most of the day, by determining to expend it on two sorts of acquaintance only-those by whom something may be got, and those from whom something maybe learned.