Most minds are the slaves of external circumstances, and conform to any hand that undertakes to mould them.

To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition.

The number of such as live without the ardour of inquiry is very small, though many content themselves with cheap amusements, and waste their lives in researches of no importance.

Those who have no power to judge of past times but by their own, should always doubt their conclusions

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.

Other things may be seized by might, or purchased with money, but knowledge is to be gained only by study, and study to be prosecuted only in retirement.

All unnecessary vows are folly, because they suppose a prescience of the future, which has not been given us.