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

We are apt to mistake our vocation by looking out of the way for occasions to exercise great and rare virtues, and by stepping over the ordinary ones that lie directly in the road before us.

Idleness among children, as among men, is the root of all evil, and leads to no other evil more certain than ill temper.

Anger is the common refuge of insignificance. People who feel their character to be slight, hope to give it weight by inflation: but the blown bladder at its fullest distention is still empty.

In grief we know the worst of what we feel but who can tell the end of what we fear?

We do not so much want books for good people, as books which will make bad ones better.

parents are too apt to mistake inclination for genius.