Would you who judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of pleasure, take this rule; whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish of spiritual things; in short; whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that is sin to you; however innocent it may be in itself.

Live as long as you may, the first twenty years are the longest half of your life.

The history of any private family, however humble, could it be fully related for five or six generations, would illustrate the state and progress of society better than the most elaborate dissertation.

Happy it were for us all if we bore prosperity as well and as wisely as we endure adverse fortune.

There are some readers who have never read an essay on taste; and if they take my advice they never will, for they can no more improve their taste by so doing than they could improve their appetite or digestion by studying a cookery-book.

In the days of my youth I remembered my God! And He hath not forgotten my age.

To a resolute mind, wishing to do is the first step toward doing. But if we do not wish to do a thing it becomes impossible.