Is it reasonable that even the arts should take advantage of and profit by our natural stupidity and feebleness of mind?

If to take up books were to take them in, and if to see them were to consider them, and to run through them were to grasp them, I should be wrong to make myself out quite as ignorant as I say I am.

Intemperance is the plaque of sensuality, and temperance is not its bane but its seasoning.

There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves.

Petty vexations may at times be petty, but still they are vexations. The smallest and most inconsiderable annoyances are the most piercing. As small letters weary the eye most, so the smallest affairs disturb us most.

Socrates, who was a perfect model in all great qualities, ... hit on a body and face so ugly and so incongruous with the beauty of his soul, he who was so madly in love with beauty.

To make a crooked stick straight, we bend it the contrary way.