Envy is of all others the most ungratifying and disconsolate passion. There is power for ambition, pleasure for luxury, and pelf even for covetousness; but envy gets no reward but vexation.

Rhetoric is nothing but reason well dressed and argument put in order.

People's opinions of themselves are legible in their countenances.

Truth is the band of union and the basis of human happiness. Without this virtue there is no reliance upon language, no confidence in friendship, no security in promises and oaths.

What can be more honorable than to have courage enough to execute the commands of reason and conscience,--to maintain the dignity of our nature, and the station assigned us?

Without discretion, people may be overlaid with unreasonable affection, and choked with too much nourishment.

Prudence is a necessary ingredient in all the virtues, without which they degenerate into folly and excess.