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

Unruly ambition is deaf, not only to the advice of friends, but to the counsels and monitions of reason itself.

A plodding diligence brings us sooner to our journey's end than a fluttering way of advancing by starts.

Wickedness may prosper for awhile, but in the long run, he that sets all the knaves at work will pay them.

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.

It is one of the vexatious mortifications of a studious man to have his thoughts disordered by a tedious visit.

To be longing for this thing to-day and for that thing to-morrow; to change likings for loathings, and to stand wishing and hankering at a venture--how is it possible for any man to be at rest in this fluctuant, wandering humor and opinion?