He [the miser] falls down and worships the god of this world, but will have neither its pomps, its vanities nor its pleasures for his trouble.

Worldly wisdom dictates to her disciples the propriety of dressing somewhat beyond their means, but of living somewhat within them.

I have somewhere seen it observed that we should make the same use of a book that the bee does of a flower: she steals sweets from it, but does not injure it.

Anger is practical awkwardness.

Diffidence is the better part of knowledge.

Theory is worth but little, unless it can explain its own phenomena, and it must effect this without contradicting itself; therefore, the facts are sometimes assimilated to the theory, rather than the theory to the facts.

A semi-civilized state of society, equally removed from the extremes of barbarity and of refinement, seems to be that particular meridian under which all the reciprocities and gratuities of hospitality do most readily flourish and abound. For it so happens that the ease, the luxury, and the abundance of the highest state of civilization, are as productive of selfishness, as the difficulties, the privations, and the sterilities of he lowest.