The transition from cause to effect, from event to event, is often carried on by secret steps, which our foresight cannot divine, and our sagacity is unable to trace.

With regard to donations always expect the most from prudent people, who keep their own accounts.

There is not any present moment that is unconnected with some future one. The life of every man is a continued chain of incidents, each link of which hangs upon the former. The transition from cause to effect, from event to event, is often carried on by secret steps, which our foresight cannot divine, and our sagacity is unable to trace. Evil may at some future period bring forth good; and good may bring forth evil, both equally unexpected.

Charity is a virtue of the heart, and not of the hands.

A fine coat is but a livery when the person who wears it discovers no higher sense than that of a footman.

The schoolboy counts the time till the return of the holidays; the minor longs to be of age; the lover is impatient till he is married.

A state of temperance, sobriety and justice without devotion is a cold, lifeless, insipid condition of virtue, and is rather to be styled philosophy than religion.