Happiness is no laughing matter.

One way in which fools succeed where wise men fail is that through ignorance of the danger they sometimes go coolly about a hazardous business.

Curiosity is as much the parent of attention, as attention is of memory.

To follow imperfect, uncertain, or corrupted traditions, in order to avoid erring in our own judgment, is but to exchange one danger for another.

Honesty is the best policy; but he who is governed by that maxim is not an honest man.

The more secure we feel against our liability to any error to which, in fact, we are liable, the greater must be our danger of falling into it.

Some persons follow the dictates of their conscience only in the same sense in which a coachman may be said to follow the horses he is driving.