“Not sharp revenge, nor hell itself can find, A fiercer torment than a guilty mind, Which day and night doth dreadfully accuse, Condemns the wretch, and still the charge renews.”

Fiction is of the essence of poetry as well as of painting; there is a resemblance in one of human bodies, things, and actions which are not real, and in the other of a true story by fiction.

Sure there is none but fears a future state; And when the most obdurate swear they do not, Their trembling hearts belie their boasting tongues.

Content with poverty, my soul I arm; And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.

Welcome, thou kind deceiver! Thou best of thieves; who, with an easy key, Dost open life, and, unperceived by us, Even steal us from ourselves.

While I am compassed round With mirth, my soul lies hid in shades of grief, Whence, like the bird of night, with half-shut eyes, She peeps, and sickens at the sight of day.

Virtue is her own reward.

Good sense and good-nature are never separated, though the ignorant world has thought otherwise. Good-nature, by which I mean beneficence and candor, is the product of right reason.

Hushed as midnight silence.

They, who would combat general authority with particular opinion, must first establish themselves a reputation of understanding better than other men.

For those whom God to ruin has design’d, He fits for fate, and first destroys their mind.

Blown roses hold their sweetness to the last.

Long pains, with use of bearing, are half eased.

If you have lived, take thankfully the past. Make, as you can, the sweet remembrance last.

Order is the greatest grace.

An hour will come, with pleasure to relate Your sorrows past, as benefits of Fate.

Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.

We lawyers are always curious, always inquisitive, always picking up odds and ends for our patchwork minds, since there is no knowing when and where they may fit into some corner.

Train your mind to see the good in everything.

Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.

I have made up my mind that I must have money, Pa. I feel that I can’t beg it, borrow it, or steal it; and so I have resolved that I must marry it.

Space and time are the framework within which the mind is constrained to construct its experience of reality.

Be of one mind and one faith, that you may conquer your enemies and lead long and happy lives.

A mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be lighted.

The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.