Avarice has ruined more souls than extravagance.

Some men who know that they are great are so very haughty withal and insufferable that their acquaintance discover their greatness only by the tax of humility which they are obliged to pay as the price of their friendship.

Make the most of the day, by determining to spend it on two sorts of acquaintances only--those by whom something may be got, and those from whom something may be learned.

There is this paradox in fear: he is most likely to inspire it in others who has none himself!

She is deceitful as the calm that precedes the hurricane, smooth as the water on the verge of the cataract, and beautiful as the rainbow, that smiling daughter of the storm; but, like the mirage in the desert, she tantalizes us with a delusion that distance creates, and that contiguity destroys.

Patience is the support of weakness; impatience the ruin of strength.

Death is like thunder in two particulars; we are alarmed, at the sound of it; and it is formidable only from that which preceded it.