Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.

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

Deviation from Nature is deviation from happiness.

A transition from an author's book to his conversation, is too often like an entrance into a large city.

Do not ... hope wholly to reason away your troubles; do not feed them with attention, and they will die imperceptibly away. Fix your thoughts upon your business, fill your intervals with company, and sunshine will again break in upon your mind.

Some people wave their dogmatic thinking until their own reason is entangled.

Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish is to change again.