There are two types of knowledge. One is knowing a thing. The other is knowing where to find it.

The fortitude which has encountered no dangers, that prudence which has surmounted no difficulties, that integrity which has been attacked by no temptation, can at best be considered but as gold not yet brought to the test, of which therefore the true value cannot be assigned.

Bashfulness may sometimes exclude pleasure, but seldom opens any avenue to sorrow or remorse.

If lawyers were to undertake no causes till they were sure they were just, a man might be precluded altogether from a trial of his claim, though, were it judicially examined, it might be found a very just claim.

The habit of looking on the bright side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a year.

He that condemns himself to compose on a stated day will often bring to his task attention dissipated, a memory embarrassed, an imagination overwhelmed, a mind distracted with anxieties, a body languishing with disease: he will labour on a barren topic till it is too late to change it; or, in the ardour of invention, diffuse his thoughts into wild exuberance, which the pressing hour of publication cannot suffer judgment to examine or reduce.

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.