Motives are better than actions. Men drift into crime. Of evil they do more than they contemplate, and of good they contemplate more than they do.

The passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways and dangerous only in one, through their excess.

The next best thing to being witty one's self, is to be able to be able to quote another's wit.

We should not so much esteem our poverty as a misfortune, were it not that the world treats it so much as a crime

Partial culture runs to the ornate, extreme culture to simplicity.

Care, admitted as guest, quickly turns to be master.

Complaint is. more contemptible than pitiful.