Thought is valuable in proportion as it is generative.

Philosophy, while it soothes the reason, damps the ambition.

Love is a very contradiction of all the elements of our ordinary nature -- it makes the proud man meek -- the cheerful, sad -- the high-spirited, tame; our strongest resolutions, our hardiest energy fail before it. Believe me, you cannot prophesy of its future effect in a man from any knowledge of his past character.

Wrap thyself in the decent veil that the arts or the graces weave for thee, O human nature! It is only the statue of marble whose nakedness the eye can behold without shame and offence!

Why should the soul ever repose? God, its Principle, reposes never.

What a rare gift, by the by, is that of manners! how difficult to define, how much more difficult to impart! Better for a man to possess them than wealth, beauty, or talent; they will more than supply all.

Earnestness is the best gift of mental power, and deficiency of heart is the cause of many men never becoming great.