Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven't courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.

People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.

Men who have flattered themselves into this opinion of their own abilities, look down on all who waste their lives over books, as a race of inferior beings condemned by nature to perpetual pupilage, and fruitlessly endeavouring to remedy their barrenness by incessant cultivation, or succour their feebleness by subsidiary strength. They presume that none would be more industrious than they, if they were not more sensible of deficiences; and readily conclude, that he who places no confidence in his own powers owes his modesty only to his weakness.

Of many, imagined blessings it may be doubted whether he that wants or possesses them had more reason to be satisfied with his lot.

Come, let me know what it is that makes a Scotch man happy!

Wine gives a man nothing... it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.

You cannot give me an instance of any man who is permitted to lay out his own time contriving not to have tedious hours.