We never think of the main business of life till a vain repentance minds us of it at the wrong end.

Money does all things,--for it gives and it takes away; it makes honest men and knaves, fools and philosophers; and so forward, mutatis mutandis, to the end of the chapter.

If we should cease to be generous and charitable because another is sordid and ungrateful, it would be much in the power of vice to extinguish Christian virtues.

Some people are all quality; you would think they are made up of nothing but title and genealogy. The stamp of dignity defaces in them the very character of humanity and transports them to such a degree of haughtiness that they reckon it below themselves to exercise either good nature or good manners.

The blessings of fortune are the lowest; the next are the bodily advantages of strength and health; but the superlative blessings, in fine, are those of the mind.

It is not the place, nor the condition, but the mind alone what it compares its situation to that can make anyone happy or miserable. Compare it to something better - result envy, frustration and sadness. Compare it to something worse - relief, gratitude and happiness.

Nothing is so fierce but love will soften; nothing so sharp-sighted in other matters but it will throw a mist before its eyes.