I account the office of benefactor, or almoner, to which God appoints all those whom he has favored with wealth, one of the most honorable and delightful in the world. He never institutes a channel for the passage of His bounties that those bounties do not enrich and beautify.

I have learned that to do one's next duty is to take a step toward all that is worth possessing.

Gossip is always a personal confession either of malice or imbecility.

It is not a question how much a man knows, but what use he can make of what he knows.

Fashion is not public opinion, or the result of embodiment of public opinion. It may be that public opinion will condemn the shape of a bonnet, as it may venture to do always, and with the certainty of being right nine times in ten: but fashion will place it upon the head of every woman in America; and, were it literally a crown of thorns, she would smile contentedly beneath the imposition.

Idleness is the sepulchre of a living man.

God gives every bird its food, but He does not throw it into its nest.