A long novitiate of acquaintance should precede the vows of friendship.

To converse with historians is to keep good company; many of them were excellent men, and those who were not, have taken care to appear such in their writings.

What Anacharsis said of the vine may aptly enough be said of prosperity. She bears the three grapes of drunkenness, pleasure, and sorrow; and happy is it if the last can cure the mischief which the former work. When afflictions fail to have their due effect, the case is desperate.

The fire of my adversity has purged the mass of my acquaintance.

Indifference must be a crime in us, to be ranked but one degree below treachery; for deserting the commonwealth is next to betraying it.

Cunning pays no regard to virtue, and is but the low mimic of reason.

The confirmed prejudices of a thoughtful life are as hard to change as the confirmed habits of an indolent life; and as some must trifle away age because they trifled away youth, others must labor on in a maze of error because they have wandered there too long to find their way out.