Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honoris a private station.

A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of.

It is certain that there is no other passion which does produce such contrary effects in so great a degree. But this may be said for love, that if you strike it out of the soul, life would be insipid, and our being but half animated.

The soul, considered with its Creator, is like one of those mathematical lines that may draw nearer to another for all eternity without a possibility of touching it; and can there be a thought so transporting as to consider ourselves in these perpetual approaches to Him, who is not only the standard of perfection, but of happiness?

Knowledge is, indeed, that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another.

Supposing all the great points of atheism were formed into a kind of creed, I would fain ask whether it would not require an infinite greater measure of faith than any set of articles which they so violently oppose.

True religion and virtue give a cheerful and happy turn to the mind, admit of all true pleasures, and even procure for us the highest.