Honor is unstable and seldom the same; for she feeds upon opinion, and is as fickle as her food.

Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen. Like friends, too, we should return to them again and again for, like true friends, they will never fail us - never cease to instruct - never cloy.

It is adverse to talent to be consorted and trained up with inferior minds and inferior companions, however high they may rank. The foal of the racer neither finds out his speed nor calls out his powers if pastured out with the common herd, that are destined for the collar and the yoke.

There are many that despise half the world; but if there be any that despise the whole of it, it is because the other half despises them.

Honor is the most capricious in her rewards. She feeds us with air, and often pulls down our house, to build our monument.

To admit that there is any such thing as chance, in the common acceptation of the term, would be to attempt to establish a power independent of God.

Sensibility would be a good portress if she had but one hand; with her right she opens the door to pleasure, but with her left to pain.