Heaven may have happiness as utterly unknown to us as the gift of perfect vision would be to a man born blind. If we consider the inlets of pleasure from five senses only, we may be sure that the same Being who created us could have given us five hundred, if He had pleased.

The excess of our youth are checks written against our age and they are payable with interest thirty years later.

It is easier to pretend to be what you are not than to hide what you really are; but he that can accomplish both has little to learn in hypocrisy.

The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves.

Despotism can no more exist in a nation until the liberty of the press be destroyed than the night can happen before the sun is set.

Where we cannot invent, we may at least improve; we may give somewhat of novelty to that which was old, condensation to that which was diffuse, perspicuity to that which was obscure, and currency to that which was recondite.

Levity is often less foolish and gravity less wise than each of them appears.