Every man prefers virtue, when there is not some strong incitement to transgress its precepts.
To grieve for evils is often wrong; but it is much more wrong to grieve without them. All sorrow that lasts longer than its cause is morbid, and should be shaken off as an attack of melancholy, as the forerunner of a greater evil than poverty or pain.
Men hate more steadily than they love.
Avarice is always poor.
A family ... is a little kingdom, torn with factions and exposed to revolutions.
Books that you may carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after all.