The present is never a happy state to any human being.

Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.

There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman.

Books are faithful repositories, which may be awhile neglected or forgotten; but when they are opened again, will again impart their instruction: memory, once interrupted, is not to be recalled. Written learning is a fixed luminary, which, after the cloud that had hidden it has passed away, is again bright in its proper station. Tradition is but a meteor, which, if once it falls, cannot be rekindled.

To have the management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained in a considerable degree by experience and habitual exercise.

The prosperity of a people is proportionate to the number of hands and minds usefully employed. To the community, sedition is a fever, corruption is a gangrene, and idleness is an atrophy. Whatever body or society wastes more than it acquires, must gradually decay, and every being that continues to be fed, and eases to labor, takes away something from the public stock.

Had I learned to fiddle, I should have done nothing else.