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

In beginning the world, if you don't wish to get chafed at every turn, fold up your pride carefully, put it under lock and key, and only let it out to air upon grand occasions. Pride is a garment all stiff brocade outside, all grating sackcloth on the side next to the skin.

Invention is nothing more than a fine deviation from, or enlargement on a fine model . . .

In families well ordered, there is always one firm, sweet temper, which controls without seeming to dictate. The Greeks represented Persuasion as crowned.

If you wish to be loved, show more of your faults than your virtues.

The brave man wants no charms to encourage him to his duty, and the good man scorns all warnings that would deter him from fulfilling it.

What ever our wandering our happiness will always be found within a narrow compass, and in the middle of the objects more immediately within our reach.