“This made me reflect, how vain an attempt it is for a man to endeavor to do himself honor among those who are out of all degree of equality or comparison with him.”

Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.

Vision is seeing the invisible.

There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake.

How is it possible to expect that mankind will take advice when they will not so much as take warning.

War: that mad game the world so loves to play.

Ale is meat, drink and cloth; it will make a cat speak and a wise man dumb.

If a lump of soot falls into the soup and you cannot conveniently get it out, stir it well in and it will give the soup a French taste.

Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.

It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.

I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.

Every day is an opportunity to make a new happy ending. May you live all the days of your life.

It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever hath been done before, may legally be done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind.

I never knew a man come to greatness or eminence who lay abed late in the morning.

No wise man ever wished to be younger.

The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.

An idle reason lessens the weight of the good ones you gave before.