Laws and institutions, like clocks, must occasionally be cleaned, wound up, and set to true time.

We under no circumstances know the appreciate of your parent till we develop into dad and mom ourselves.

There are joys which long to be ours. God sends ten thousands truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing awhile upon the roof, and then fly away.

We ought to be ten times as hungry for knowledge as for food for the body.

The meanest, most contemptible kind of praise is that which first speaks well of a man, and then qualifies it with a But.

Many men are stored full of unused knowledge. Like loaded guns that are never fired off, or military magazines in times of peace, they are stuffed with useless ammunition.

A man should fear when he only enjoys what good he does publicly. Is it not the publicity rather than the charity he loves? Is it not vanity, rather than benevolence, that gives such charities?