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.

In life we shall find many men that are great, and some that are good, but very few men that are both great and good.

A public debt is a kind of anchor in the storm; but if the anchor be too heavy for the vessel, she will be sunk by that very weight which was intended for her preservation.

Most of our misfortunes are more supportable than the comments of our friends upon them.

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.

Sometimes the greatest adversities turn out to be the greatest blessings.

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