The hours of a wise man are lengthened by his ideas.

There is noting truly valuable which can be purchased without pains and labor. The gods have set a price upon every real and noble pleasure.

It is of unspeakable advantage to possess our minds with an habitual good intention, and to aim all our thoughts, words, and actions at some laudable end.

Upon laying a weight in one of the scales, inscribed eternity, though I threw in that of time, prosperity, affliction, wealth, and poverty, which seemed very ponderous, they were not able to stir the opposite balance.

Whether zeal or moderation be the point we aim at, let us keep fire out of the one, and frost out of the other.

Tradition is an important help to history, but its statements should be carefully scrutinized before we rely on them.

A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart; his next, to escape the censures of the world: if the last interferes with the former, it ought to be entirely neglected; but otherwise there cannot be a greater satisfaction to an honest mind, than to see those approbations which it gives itself seconded by the applauses of the public.