Imperfection clings to a person, and if they wait till they are brushed off entirely, they would spin for ever on their axis, advancing nowhere.

The old cathedrals are good, but the great blue dome that hangs over everything is better.

For all right judgment of any man or things it is useful, nay, essential, to see his good qualities before pronouncing on his bad.

A man's felicity consists not in the outward and visible blessing of fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind.

The world is a thing that a man must learn to despise, and even to neglect, before he can learn to reverence it, and work in it and for it.

A man lives by believing something: not by debating and arguing about many things.

Roguery is thought by some to be cunning and laughable: it is neither; it is devilish.