There are persons who are never easy unless they are putting your books and papers in order--that is, according to their notions of the matter--and hide things lest they should be lost, where neither the owner nor anybody else can find them. This is a sort of magpie faculty. If anything is left where you want it, it is called litter. There is a pedantry in housewifery, as well as in the gravest concerns. Abraham Tucker complained that whenever his maid servant had been in his library, he could not see comfortably to work again for several days.

An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may.

He is a hypocrite who professes what he does not believe; not he who does not practice all he wishes or approves.

The way to secure success is to be more anxious about obtaining than about deserving it.

It is better to be able neither to read nor write than to be able to do nothing else.

Of all eloquence a nickname is the most concise; of all arguments the most unanswerable.

Cowardice is not synonymous with prudence. It often happens that the better part of discretion is valor.