The fool is willing to pay for anything but wisdom. No man buys that of which he supposes himself to have an abundance already.

Modesty is policy, no less than virtue.

To make punishments efficacious, two things are necessary. They must never be disproportioned to the offence, and they must be certain.

What we call vice in our neighbor may be nothing less than a crude virtue. To him who knows nothing more of precious stones than he can learn from a daily contemplation of his breastpin, a diamond in the mine must be a very uncompromising sort of stone.

The only true source of politeness is consideration,--that vigilant moral sense which never loses sight of the rights, the claims, and the sensibilities of others. This is the one quality, over all others, necessary to make a gentleman.

Stagnation is something worse than death. It is corruption, also.

Ambition is frequently the only refuge which life has left to the denied or mortified affections. We chide at the grasping eye, the daring wing, the soul that seems to thirst for sovereignty only, and know not that the flight of this ambitious bird has been from a bosom or home that is filled with ashes.