“We should not be too niggardly in our praise, for men will do more to support a character than to raise one.”

To cure us of our immoderate love of gain, we should seriously consider how many goods there are that money will not purchase, and these the best; and how many evils there are that money will not remedy, and these the worst.

It is not so difficult a task to plant new truths, as to root out old errors; for there is this paradox in men, they run after that which is new, but are prejudiced in favor of that which is old.

Hope is a prodigal young heir, and experience is his banker.

A fool is often as dangerous to deal with as a knave, and always more incorrigible.

He that studies books alone, will know how things ought to be; and he that studies men, will know how things are.

Man is an embodied paradox, a bundle of contradictions.

It is better to meet danger than to wait for it. He that is on a lee shore, and foresees a hurricane, stands out to sea and encounters a storm to avoid a shipwreck.

Doubt is the vestibule of faith.

The awkwardness and embarrassment which all feel on beginning to write, when they themselves are the theme, ought to serve as a hint to author’s that self is a subject they ought very rarely to descant upon.

Insults are engendered from vulgar minds, like toadstools from a dunghill.

That writer does the most who gives his reader the most knowledge and takes from him the least time.

Theories are private property, but truth is common stock.

Sturdy beggars can bear stout denials.

None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them.

Let those who would affect singularity with success first determine to be very virtuous, and they will be sure to be very singular.

That is fine benevolence, finely executed, which, like the Nile, comes from hidden sources.

There are two kinds of stones, as everyone knows, one of which rolls.

Anyone who claims that all religions are the same betrays not only an ignorance of all religions but also a caricatured view of even the best-known ones. Every religion at its core is exclusive.

Consider it: every person you have ever met, every person will suffer the loss of his friends and family. All are going to lose everything they love in this world. Why would one want to be anything but kind to them in the meantime?

The more one knows, the more one simplifies.

The happiness of one’s own heart alone cannot satisfy the soul; one must try to include, as necessary to one’s own happiness, the happiness of others.

Freedom, Truth, Honour, you could rattle off a hundred such words and behind every one of them would gather a thousand punks, pompous little farts, waving the banner with one hand and reaching under the table with the other.

It is not the actual enjoyment of pleasure that we desire. What we want is to test the futility of that pleasure, so as to be no longer obsessed by it.

Because, to despise money, one must have plenty of it.