We often regret we did not do otherwise, when that very otherwise would, in all probability, have done for us.

Bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret.

How small a portion of our life it is that we really enjoy! In youth we are looking forward to things that are to come; in old age we are looking backward to things that are gone past; in manhood, although we appear indeed to be more occupied in things that are present, yet even that is too often absorbed in vague determinations to be vastly happy on some future day when we have time.

Time is the most subtle yet the most insatiable of depredators, and by appearing to take nothing is permitted to take all; nor can it be satisfied until it has stolen the world from us, and us from the world. It constantly flies, yet overcomes all things by flight; and although it is the present ally, it will be the future conqueror of death.

It is much easier to ruin a man of principle than a man of none, for he may be ruined through his scruples. Knavery is supple and can bend; but honesty is firm and upright, and yields not.

The victim to too severe a law is considered as a martyr rather than a criminal.

Genius in one grand particular is like life. We know nothing of either but by their effects.