People are always willing to follow advice when it accords with their own wishes.

Sure there's different roads from this to Dungarvan* - some thinks one road pleasanter, and some think another; wouldn't it be mighty foolish to quarrel for this? - and sure isn't it twice worse to thry to interfere with people for choosing the road they like best to heaven?

You were wise not to waste years in a lawsuit ... he who commences a suit resembles him who plants a palm-tree which he will not live to see flourish.

Happiness is a rare plant that seldom takes root on earth-few ever enjoyed it, except for a brief period; the search after it is rarely rewarded by the discovery, but there is an admirable substitute for it... a contented spirit.

Grief is, of all the passions, the one that is the most ingenious and indefatigable in finding food for its own subsistence.

Society punishes not the vices of its members, but their detection.

Talent, like beauty, to be pardoned, must be obscure and unostentatious.