Were we as eloquent as angels we still would please people much more by listening rather than talking.

Honor is the most capricious in her rewards. She feeds us with air, and often pulls down our house, to build our monument.

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.

It is good to act as if. It is even better to grow to the point where it is no longer an act.

Short as life is, some find it long enough to outlive their characters, their constitutions and their estates.

The greatest miracle that the Almighty could perform would be to make a bad man happy, even in heaven; he must unparadise that blessed place to accomplish it. In its primary signification, all vice--that is, all excess--brings its own punishment even here.

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