No two things differ more than hurry and dispatch. Hurry is the mark of a weak mind, dispatch of a strong one. A weak man in office, like a squirrel in a cage, is laboring eternally, but to no purpose, and is in constant motion without getting on a job; like a turnstile, he is in everybody's way, but stops nobody; he talks a great deal, but says very little; looks into everything but sees nothing; and has a hundred irons in the fire, but very few of them are hot, and with those few that are, he only burns his fingers.

He that swells in prosperity will be sure to shrink in adversity.

It is seldom that statesmen have the option of choosing between a good and an evil.

The study of mathematics, like the Nile, begins in minuteness but ends in magnificence.

No disorders have employed so many quacks, as those that have no cure; and no sciences have exercised so many quills, as those that have no certainty.

In all places, and in all times, those religionists who have believed too much have been more inclined to violence and persecution than those who have believed too little.

Pride differs in many things from vanity, and by gradations that never blend, although they may be somewhat indistinguishable. Pride may perhaps be termed a too high opinion of ourselves founded on the overrating of certain qualities that we do actually possess; whereas vanity is more easily satisfied, and can extract a feeling of self-complacency from qualifications that are imaginary.