Men's arguments often prove nothing but their wishes.

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

A man who knows the world will not only make the most of everything he does know, but of many things he does not know, and will gain more credit by his adroit mode of hiding his ignorance than the pedant by his awkward attempt to exhibit his erudition.

The seat of perfect contentment is in the head; for every individual is thoroughly satisfied with his own proportion of brains.

As a man of pleasure, by a vain attempt to be more happy than any man can be, is often more miserable than most men are, so the sceptic, in a vain attempt to be wise beyond what is permitted to man, plunges into a darkness more deplorable, and a blindness more incurable than that of the common herd, whom he despises, and would fain instruct.

As no roads are so rough as those that have just been mended, so no sinners are so intolerant as those that have just turned saints.

No man can purchase his virtue too dear, for it is the only thing whose value must ever increase with the price it has cost us. Our integrity is never worth so much as when we have parted with our all to keep it.