To many people virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them.

A good part of the fame of most celebrated men is due to the shortsightedness of their admirers

Never undertake anything for which you wouldn't have the courage to ask the blessings of heaven.

Too much is unwholesome.

The ordinary man is ruined by the flesh lusting against the spirit; the scholar by the spirit lusting too much against the flesh.

Honest unaffected distrust of human abilities under all circumstances is the surest sign of strength of mind.

One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.