I would advise you, Sir, to study algebra, if you are not an adept already in it: your head would get less muddy, and you will leave off tormenting your neighbours about paper and packthread, while we all live together in a world that is bursting with sin and sorrow.

Fear is implanted in us as a preservative from evil but its duty, like that of other passions, is not to overbear reason, but to assist it. It should not be suffered to tyrannize in the imagination, to raise phantoms of horror, or to beset life with supernumerary distresses.

We have always pretensions to fame which, in our own hearts, we know to be disputable.

Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.

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.

The life of a solitary man will be certainly miserable, but not certainly devout.

The man who feels himself ignorant should, at least, be modest.