How can he remember well his ignorance - which his growth requires - who has so often to use his knowledge?

They who assert the purest right, and consequently are most dangerous to a corrupt State, commonly have not spent much time accumulating property. The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich. Absolutely speaking, the more money, the less virtue; for money comes between a man and his objects, and obtains them for him; and it was certainly no great virtue to obtain it.

Many old people receive pensions for no other reason, it seems to me, but as a compensation for having lived a long time ago.

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.

I could not undertake to form a nucleus of an institution for the development of infant minds, where none already existed. It would be too cruel.

The fact is, mental philosophy is very like Poverty, which, you know, begins at home; and indeed, when it goes abroad, it is poverty itself.

I have always endeavored to acquire strict business habits; they are indispensable to every man. If your trade is with the Celestial Empire, then some small counting house on the coast, in some Salem harbor, will be fixture enough.