Shining outward qualities, although they may excite first-rate expectations, are not unusually found to be the companions of second-rate abilities.

There are two modes of establishing our reputation; to be praised by honest men, and to be abused by rogues.

It is in the middle classes of society that all the finest feeling, and the most amiable propensities of our nature do principally nourish and abound. For the good opinion of our fellow-men is the strongest though not the purest motive to virtue. The privations of poverty render us too cold and callous, and the privileges of property too arrogant and confidential, to feel; the first places us beneath the influence of opinion--the second, above it.

True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander.

Some persons will tell you, with an air of the miraculous, that they recovered although they were given over; whereas they might with more reason have said, they recovered because they were given over.

Metaphysicians have been learning their lessons for the last four thousand years, and it is high time that they should now begin to teach us something. Can any of the tribe inform us why all the operations of the mind are carried on with undiminished strength and activity in dreams, except the judgment, which alone is suspended and dormant?

Falsehood is often rocked by truth, but she soon outgrows her cradle and discards her nurse.