Cunning is neither the consequence of sense, nor does it give sense. A proof that it is not sense, is that cunning people never imagine that others can see through them. It is the consequence of weakness.

Poetry is a beautiful way of spoiling prose, and the laborious art of exchanging plain sense for harmony.

I have often said, and oftener think, that this world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel - a solution of why Democritus laughed and Heraclitus wept.

Serendipity... You will understand it better by the derivation than by the definition. I once read a silly fairy tale, called 'The Three Princes of Serendip': as their Highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of.

Dr. Calder [a Unitarian minister] said of Dr. [Samuel] Johnson on the publications of Boswell and Mrs. Piozzi, that he was like Actaeon, torn to pieces by his own pack.

Who has begun has half done. Have the courage to be wise. Begin!

The contempt of money is no more a virtue than to wash one's hand is one; but one does not willingly shake hands with a man that never washes his.