“To the composition of novels and romances, nothing is necessary but paper, pens, and ink, with the manual capacity of using them.”

He grew weary of this condescension, and began to treat the opinions of his wife with that haughtiuess and insolence, which none but those who deserve some contempt themselves can bestow, and those only who deserve no contempt can bear.

Domestic happiness is the end of almost all our pursuits, and the common reward of all our pains. When men find themselves forever barred from this delightful fruition, they are lost to all industry, and grow careless of all their worldly affairs. Thus they become bad subjects, bad relations, bad friends, and bad men.

Money is the fruit of evil, as often as the root of it.

We endeavor to conceal our vices under the disguise of the opposite virtues.

O innocence, how glorious and happy a portion art thou to the breast that possesses thee! thou fearest neither the eyes nor the tongues of men. Truth, the most powerful of all things, is thy strongest friend; and the brighter the light is in which thou art displayed, the more it discovers thy transcendent beauties.

Nothing more aggravates ill success than the near approach of good.

Some virtuous women are too liberal in their insults to a frail sister; but virtue can support itself without borrowing any assistance from the vices of other women.

All nature wears one universal grin.

Good writers will, indeed, do well to imitate the ingenious traveller, who always proportions his stay in any place.

There is scarcely any man, how much soever he may despise the character of a flatterer, but will condescend in the meanest manner to flatter himself.

Life may as properly be called an art as any other.

Let no man be sorry he has done good, because others have done evil.

A rich man without charity is a rogue; and perhaps it would be no difficult matter to prove that he is also a fool.

There is nothing so useful to man in general, nor so beneficial to particular societies and individuals, as trade. This is that alma mater, at whose plentiful breast all mankind are nourished.

Success is a fruit of slow growth.

Now in reality, the world has paid too great a compliment to critics, and has imagined them to be men of much greater profundity than they really are.

People are losing the capacity to listen to words or follow ideas.

Encouragement is awesome. Think about it. It has the capacity to lift a man’s or a woman’s shoulders. To breathe fresh air into the fading embers of a smoldering dream. To actually change the course of another human being’s day, week, or life.

The capacity for getting along with our neighbor depends to a large extent on the capacity for getting along with ourselves. The self-respecting individual will try to be as tolerant of his neighbor’s shortcomings as he is of his own.

People are just not impressed by me at home.

To be liberated, woman must feel free to be herself, not in rivalry to man but in the context of her own capacity and her personality.

Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by incapacity.

The most fortunate are those who have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder and even ecstasy.

If you deliberately plan to be less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you’ll be deeply unhappy for the rest of your life. You will be evading your own capacities, your own possibilities.