What we call conscience in many instances, is only a wholesome fear of the law.

Qualities not regulated run into their opposites. Economy before competence is meanness after it. Therefore economy is for the poor; the rich may dispense with it.

Hope is the best part of our riches. What sufficeth it that we have the wealth of the Indies in our pockets, if we have not the hope of heaven in our souls?

We trifle when we assign limits to our desires, since nature hath set none.

It is only an error of judgment to make a mistake, but it argues an infirmity of character to adhere to it when discovered.

No single character is ever so great that a nation can afford to form itself upon it. Imitation belittles. This appears in the instance of the Chinese. The Chinese are so many Confucii; in miniature. And so with the Jews. Moses, the lawgiver, is poorly represented by Moses, the old clothesman ; or even by Dives, the hanker.

We should round every day of stirring action with an evening of thought. We learn nothing of our experience except we muse upon it.