“Sturdy beggars can bear stout denials.”

We know the effects of many things, but the cause of few; experience, therefore, is a surer guide than imagination, and inquiry than conjecture.

There are prating coxcombs in the world who would rather talk than listen, although Shakespeare himself were the orator, and human nature the theme!

Falsehood is often rocked by truth, but she soon outgrows her cradle and discards her nurse.

The present time has one advantage over every other — it is our own.

Hurry is the mark of a weak mind, dispatch of a strong one.

Pain may be said to follow pleasure as its shadow; but the misfortune is that in this particular case, the substance belongs to the shadow, the emptiness to its cause.

There were moments of despondency when Shakespeare thought himself no poet, and Raphael no painter; when the greatest wits have doubted the excellence of their happiest efforts.

Eloquence is the language of nature, and cannot be learned in the schools; but rhetoric is the creature of art, which he who feels least will most excel in.

It is good to act as if. It is even better to grow to the point where it is no longer an act.

It is astonishing how much more people are interested in lengthening life than improving it.

Most females will forgive a liberty rather than a slight.

Those that are the loudest in their threats are the weakest in their actions.

The avarice of the miser may be termed the grand sepulchral of all his other passions, as they successively decay.

I have found by experience that they who have spent all their lives in cities, improve their talents but impair their virtues; and strengthen their minds but weaken their morals.

Human foresight often leaves its proudest possessor only a choice of evils.

Commerce flourishes by circumstances, precarious, transitory, contingent, almost as the winds and waves that bring it to our shores.

For one who knows me, I am one with him; for one who wants to know me, I am very near to him; and for one who does not know me, I am a beggar before him.

Make of the Silence your to-do tasks, of the compassion your wealth and of the meditation your beggar’s bowl.

All true language is incomprehensible, like the chatter of a beggar’s teeth.

Love is bitter and all there is, and that the rest is for the emotional beggars of the earth.

Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.

In ease of body, peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level and the beggar who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.

Modesty is of no use to a beggar.

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.