Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor.

The imaginations excited by the view of an unknown and untravelled wilderness are not such as arise in the artificial solitude of parks and gardens... The phantoms which haunt a desert are want, and misery, and danger; the evils of dereliction rush upon the thoughts; man is made unwillingly acquainted with his own weakness, and meditation shows him only how little he can sustain, and how little he can perform.

No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize, and force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability.

As long as one lives he will have need of repentance.

No man is obliged to do as much as he can do. A man is to have part of his life to himself.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

It is our first duty to serve society, and after we have done that, we may attend wholly to the salvation of our own souls.