To take a wife merely as an agreeable and rational companion, will commonly be found to be a grand mistake.

Firmness of purpose is one of the best instruments of success.

One should always think of what one is about; when one is learning, one should not think of play; and when one is at play, one should not think of learning.

So much are our minds influenced by the accidents of our bodies, that every man is more the man of the day than a regular and consequential character.

There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt: and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.

I do not think that a Physician should be admitted into the College till he could bring proofs of his having cured, in his own person, at least four incurable distempers.

In your friendships and in your enmities let your confidence and your hostilities have certain bounds; make not the former dangerous, nor the latter irreconcilable. There are strange vicissitudes in business.