In marriage do thou be wise: prefer the person before money, virtue before beauty, the mind before the body; then thou hast a wife, a friend, a companion, a second self.

God is better served in resisting a temptation to evil than in many formal prayers.

That plenty should produce either covetousness or prodigality is a perversion of providence; and yet the generality of men are the worse for their riches.

Between a man and his wife nothing ought to rule but love. Authority is for children and servants, yet not without sweetness.

Above all things endeavor to breed them up the love of virtue, and that holy plain way of it which we have lived in, that the world in no part of it get into my family. I had rather they we're homely than finely bred as to outward behavior; yet I love sweetness mixed with gravity, and cheerfulness tempered with sobriety.

To do evil that good may come of it is for bunglers in politics as well as morals.

Friendship is the union of spirits.