Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it; courage which arises from a sense of duty acts; in a uniform manner.

Our sight is the most perfect and most delightful of all our senses. It fills the mind with the largest variety of ideas, converses with its objects at the greatest distance, and continues the longest in action without being tired or satiated with its proper enjoyments.

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

The jealous man's disease is of so malignant a nature, that it converts all it takes into its own nourishment.

Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures.

Plutarch has written an essay on the benefits which a man may receive from his enemies; and among the good fruits of enmity, mentions this in particular, that by the reproaches which it casts upon us, we see the worst side of ourselves.

A reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure until he knows whether the writer of it be a black man or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor.