One of the most important but one of the most difficult things for a powerful mind is to be its own master.

Pedantry in learning is like hypocrisy inn religion--a form of knowledge without the power of it.

In the loss of an object we do not proportion our grief to the real value it bears, but to the value our fancies set upon it.

Fables take off from the severity of instruction, and enforce it at the same time that they conceal it.

I always rejoice when I see a tribunal filled with a man of an upright and inflexible temper, who in the execution of his country's laws can overcome all private fear, resentment, solicitation, and even pity it self. Whatever passion enters into a sentence or decision, so far will there be in it a tincture of injustice. In short, justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is therefore always represented as blind, that we may suppose her thoughts are wholly intent on the equity of a cause, without being diverted or prejudiced by objects foreign to it.

A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world; and if in the present life his happiness arises from the subduing of his desires, it will arise in the next from the gratification of them.

Those Marriages generally abound most with Love and Constancy, that are preceded by a long Courtship.