When you are disposed to be vain of your mental acquirements, look up to those who are more accomplished than yourself, that you may be fired with emulation; but when you feel dissatisfied with your circumstances, look down on those beneath you, that you may learn contentment.

Youth has a quickness of apprehension, which it is very apt to mistake for an acuteness of penetration.

Absence in love is like water upon fire; a little quickens, but much extinguishes it.

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

Pride never sleeps. The principle at least is always awake. An intemperate man is sometimes sober, but a proud man is never humble.

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

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