Strong as our passions are, they may be starved into submission, and conquered without being killed.

It is a mortifying truth, and ought to teach the wisest of us humility, that many of the most valuable discoveries have been the result of chance rather than of contemplation, and of accident rather than of design.

We make a goddess of Fortune ... and place her in the highest heaven. But it is not fortune that is exalted and powerful, but we ourselves that are abject and weak.

The inheritance of a distinguished and noble name is a proud inheritance to him who lives worthily of it.

Gold is worshipped in all climates, without a single temple, and by all classes, without a single hypocrite.

There are only two things in which the false professors of all religions have agreed--to persecute all other sects and to plunder their own.

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.