A house may draw visitors, but it is the possessor alone that can detain them.

If a cause be good, the most violent attack of its enemies will not injure it so much as an injudicious defence of it by its friends.

No disorders have employed so many quacks, as those that have no cure; and no sciences have exercised so many quills, as those that have no certainty.

Anguish of mind has driven thousands to suicide; anguish of body, none. This proves that the health of the mind is of far more consequence to our happiness than the health of the body, although both are deserving of much more attention than either of them receive.

It has been said that men carry on a kind of coasting trade with religion. In the voyage of life, they profess to be in search of heaven, but take care not to venture so far in their approximations to it, as entirely to lose sight of the earth; and should their frail vessel be in danger of shipwreck, they will gladly throw their darling vices overboard, as other mariners their treasures, only to fish them up again when the storm is over.

Our actions must clothe us with an immortality loathsome or glorious.

Courage is like the diamond,--very brilliant; not changed by fire, capable of high polish, but except for the purpose of cutting hard bodies useless.