Whatever you do, do it to the purpose; do it thoroughly, not superficially. Go to the bottom of things. Any thing half done, or half known, is in my mind, neither done nor known at all. Nay, worse, for it often misleads.

Ceremony is necessary in Courts, as the outwork and defense of manners.

Let your enemies be disarmed by the gentleness of your manner, but let them feel at the same time the steadiness of your just resentment for there is a great difference between bearing malice, which is always ungenerous, and a resolute self-defense which is ever prudent and justifiable.

It seems to me that physical sickness softens, just as moral sickness hardens, the heart.

We are hardly ever grateful for a fine clock or watch when it goes right, and we pay attention to it only when it falters, for then we are caught by surprise. It ought to be the other way about.

I have, by long experience, found women to be like Telephus's spear: if one end kills, the other cures.

If you have an hour, will you not improve that hour, instead of idling it away?