We fancy that our afflictions are sent us directly from above; sometimes we think it in piety and contrition, but oftener in moroseness and discontent.

Ambition is but avarice on stilts, and masked. God sometimes sends a famine, sometimes a pestilence, and sometimes a hero, for the chastisement of mankind; none of them surely for our admiration.

Friendship may sometimes step a few paces in advance of truth.

A wise man will always be a Christian, because the perfection of wisdom is to know where lies tranquillity of mind and how to attain it, which Christianity teaches.

Many laws as certainly make men bad, as bad men make many laws.

In the morn of life we are alert, we are heated in its noon, and only in its decline do we repose.

No truer word, save God's, was ever spoken, Than that the largest heart is soonest broken.