A man improves more by reading the story of a person eminent for prudence and virtue, than by the finest rules and precepts of morality.

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 itself.

The hours of a wise man are lengthened by his ideas, as those of a fool are by his passions. The time of the one is long, because he does not know what to do with it; so is that of the other, because he distinguishes every moment of it with useful or amusing thoughts--or, in other words, because the one is always wishing it away, and the other always enjoying it.

True benevolence or compassion, extends itself through the whole of existence and sympathizes with the distress of every creature capable of sensation.

Contentment produces, in some measure, all those effects which the alchemist usually ascribes to what he calls the philosopher's stone; and if it does not bring riches, it does the same thing by banishing the desire for them.

There is not a more pleasante exercise of the mind than gratitude.

One may know a man that never conversed in the world, by his excess of good-breeding.