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

We are too ready to imagine that we are religious, because we know something of religion. We appropriate to ourselves the pious sentiments we read, and we talk as if the thoughts of other men's heads were really the feelings of our own hearts. But piety has not its seat in the memory, but in the affections, for which however the memory is an excellent purveyor, though a bad substitute.

parents are too apt to mistake inclination for genius.

A faint endeavor ends in a sure defeat.

Nothing raises the price of a blessing like its removal; whereas it was its continuance which should have taught us its value. There are three requisitions to the proper enjoyment of earthly blessings,--a thankful reflection on the goodness of the Giver, a deep sense of our unworthiness, a recollection of the uncertainty of long possessing them. The first would make us grateful; the second, humble; and the third, moderate.

the modes of speech are scarcely more variable than the modes of silence.

Sweet is the breath of praise when given by those whose own high merit claims the praise they give.