Wisdom views with an indifferent eye all finite joys, all blessings born to die.

The ingenuity of self-deception is inexhaustible.

If I wanted to punish an enemy, it should be by fastening on him the trouble of constantly hating somebody.

Life though a short, is a working day. Activity may lead to evil; but inactivity cannot be led to good.

he who finds he has wasted a shilling may by diligence hope to fetch it up again; but no repentance or industry can ever bring back one wasted hour.

Sound economy is a sound understanding brought into action; it is calculation realized; it is the doctrine of proportion reduced to practice; it is foreseeing contingencies, and providing against them.

we contrive to make revenge itself look like religion. We call down thunder on many a head under pretence, that those on whom we invoke it are God's enemies, when perhaps we invoke it because they are ours.