It is not the business of virtue to extirpate the affections of the mind, but to regulate them.

Our delight in any particular study, art, or science rises and improves in proportion to the application which we bestow upon it. Thus, what was at first an exercise becomes at length an entertainment.

The unassuming youth seeking instruction with humility gains good fortune.

Animals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass.

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

Friendships, in general, are suddenly contracted; and therefore it is no wonder they are easily dissolved.

That fine part of our construction, the eye, seems as much the receptacle and seat of our passions as the mind itself; and at least it is the outward portal to introduce them to the house within, or rather the common thoroughfare to let our affections pass in and out.