What a strange narrowness of mind now is that, to think the things we have not known are better than the things we have known.

Words are but the signs of ideas.

Advice is seldom welcome. Those who need it most, like it least.

Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present.

That kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own esteem.

It may be observed in general that the future is purchased by the present. It is not possible to secure distant or permanent happiness but by the forbearance of some immediate gratification. This is so evidently true with regard to the whole of our existence that all precepts of theology have no other tendency than to enforce a life of faith; a life regulated not by our senses but by our belief; a life in which pleasures are to be refused for fear of invisible punishments, and calamities sometimes to be sought, and always endured, in hope of rewards that shall be obtained in another state.

It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.