“There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue.”

I was ever of the opinion, that the honest man who married and brought up a large family, did more service than he who continued single, and only talked of population.

You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.

Surely the best way to meet the enemy is head on in the field and not wait till they plunder our very homes.

A great source of calamity lies in regret and anticipation; therefore a person is wise who thinks of the present alone, regardless of the past or future.

People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy.

Man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long.

Law grinds the poor, and rich men rule the law.

Life is a journey that must be traveled no matter how bad the roads and accommodations.

Write how you want, the critic shall show the world you could have written better.

The best way to make your audience laugh is to start laughing yourself.

I love everything that’s old, – old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.

Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.

With disadvantages enough to bring him to humility, a Scotsman is one of the proudest things alive.

The company of fools may first make us smile, but in the end we always feel melancholy.

Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues.

If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.

I am myself impressed by the great social advantages of increasing the stock of capital until it ceases to be scarce.

If a commodity were in no way useful, – in other words, if it could in no way contribute to our gratification, – it would be destitute of exchangeable value, however scarce it might be, or whatever quantity of labour might be necessary to procure it.

Investment based on genuine long-term expectations is so difficult today as to be scarcely practicable.

The cat is such a perfect symbol of beauty and superiority that it seems scarcely possible for any true aesthete and civilised cynic to do other than worship it.

She had become so thoroughly annealed into his life that she was like the air he breathed–necessary but scarcely noticed.

I like great directors who are scarce. Prolific ones are nice too but for me, there’s something about the scarcity that makes it all the more valuable.

Acquaintances are always abundant; friends are always scarce!

Sex is perhaps like culture – a luxury that only becomes an art after generations of leisurely acquaintance. Why we scarcely approach either as individuals – it’s mass propulsion still!