The excesses of our youth are drafts upon our old age.

That is fine benevolence, finely executed, which, like the Nile, comes from hidden sources.

Human foresight often leaves its proudest possessor only a choice of evils.

In death itself there can be nothing terrible, for the act of death annihilates sensation; but there are many roads to death, and some of them justly formidable, even to the bravest.

Let those who would affect singularity with success first determine to be very virtuous, and they will be sure to be very singular.

The martyrs to vice far exceed the martyrs to virtue, both in endurance and in number.

Men of great and shining qualities do not always succeed in life, but the fault lies more often in themselves than in others.