Avoid all affectation and singularity. What is according to nature is best, and what is contrary to it is always distasteful. Nothing is graceful that is not our own.

A man by tumbling his thoughts, and forming them into expressions, gives them a new fermentation, which works them into a finer body.

Books support us in our solitude and keep us from being a burden to ourselves.

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

Envy is an ill-natured vice, and is made up of meanness and malice. It wishes the force of goodness to be strained, and the measure of happiness abated. It laments over prosperity, and sickens at the sight of health. It oftentimes wants spirit as well as good nature.

The abuse of a thing is no argument against the use of it.

Remorse of conscience is like an old wound; a man is in no condition to fight under such circumstances. The pain abates his vigor and takes up too much of his attention.