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

It is doubtful whether mankind are most indebted to those who like Bacon and Butler dig the gold from the mine of literature, or to those who, like Paley, purify it, stamp it, fix its real value, and give it currency and utility.

We often pretend to fear what we really despise, and more often despise what we really fear.

Mystery magnifies danger as the fog the sun.

A high degree of intellectual refinement in the female is the surest pledge society can have for the improvement of the male.

He that swells in prosperity will be sure to shrink in adversity.

Happiness, that grand mistress of the ceremonies in the dance of life, impels us through all its mazes and meanderings, but leads none of us by the same route.

Happiness leads none of us by the same route.

Temperate men drink the most, because they drink the longest.

That cowardice is incorrigible which the love of power cannot overcome.

Money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed. Health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied.

The Grecian’s maxim would indeed be a sweeping clause in Literature; it would reduce many a giant to a pygmy; many a speech to a sentence; and many a folio to a primer.

Most plagiarists, like the drone, have neither taste to select, industry to acquire, nor skill to improve, but impudently pilfer the honey ready prepared, from the hive.

Strong as our passions are, they may be starved into submission, and conquered without being killed.

The excesses of our youth are drafts upon our old age.

Ladies of Fashion starve their happiness to feed their vanity, and their love to feed their pride.

He that studies only men will get the body of knowledge without the soul; and he that studies only books, the soul without the body.