When there is no hope, there can be no endeavor.

You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.

Keeping accounts, sir, is of no use when a man is spending his own money, and has nobody to whom he is to account. You won't eat less beef today because you have written down what it cost yesterday.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it.

Every man has a lurking wish to appear considerable in his native place.

Life, to be worthy of a rational being, must be always in progression; we must always purpose to do more or better than in time past.

Norway, too, has noble prospects; and Lapland is remarkable for prodigious noble wild prospects. But, Sir, let me tell you, the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England!