We are valued in this world at the rate we desire to be valued.

Pure friendship is something which men of an inferior intellect can never taste.

The same vices which are huge and insupportable in others we do not feel in ourselves.

It's motive alone which gives character to the actions of men.

Nothing more clearly shows how little God esteems his gift to men of wealth, money, position and other worldly goods, than the way he distributes these, and the sort of men who are most amply provided with them.

The mind, like all other things, will become impaired, the sciences are its food,--they nourish, but at the same time they consume it.

Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life; cunning is a kind of instinct, that only looks out after our immediate interests and welfare. Discretion is only found in men of strong sense and good understanding; cunning is often to be met with in brutes themselves, and in persons who are but the fewest removes from them.