Falsehood, like the dry-rot, flourishes the more in proportion as air and light are excluded.

Never argue at the dinner table, for the one who is not hungry gets the best of the argument.

When any person of really eminent virtue becomes the object of envy, the clamor and abuse by which he is assailed is but the sign and accompaniment of his success in doing service to the public. And if he is a truly wise man, he will take no more notice of it than the moon does of the howling of the dogs. Her only answer to them is to shine on.

Great affectation and great absence of it are at first sight very similar.

It is not that pearls fetch a high price because men have dived for them; but on the contrary, men have dived for them because they fetch a high price.

It is a good plan, with a young person of a character to be much affected by ludicrous and absurd representations, to show him plainly by examples that there is nothing which may not be thus represented. He will hardly need to be told that everything is not a mere joke.

Man is naturally more desirous of a quiet and approving, than of a vigilant and tender conscience--more desirous of security than of safety.