Affliction is the school in which great virtues are acquired, in which great characters are formed.

The constant habit of perusing devout books is so indispensable, that it has been termed the oil of the lamp of prayer. Too much reading, however, and too little meditation, may produce the effect of a lamp inverted; which is extinguished by the very excess of that ailment, whose property is to feed it.

Oh! the joy Of young ideas painted on the mind, In the warm glowing colors fancy spreads On objects not yet known, when all is new, And all is lovely.

If I wished to punish my enemy, I should make him hate somebody.

There is scarcely any fault in another which offends us more than vanity, though perhaps there is none that really injures us so little.

Where evil may be done, it is right to ponder; where only suffered, know the shortest pause is much too long.

it is the modern nature of goodness to exert itself quietly, while a few characters of the opposite cast seem, by the rumor of their exploits, to fill the world; and by their noise to multiply their numbers.