“Silence is sometimes more significant and sublime than the most noble and most expressive eloquence, and is on many occasions the indication of a great mind.”

There are infinite reveries, numberless extravagances, and a perpetual train of vanities which pass through both.

That aids and strengthens virtue where it meets her And imitates her actions where she is not: It is not to be sported with.

Honour’s a sacred tie, the law of kings, The noble mind’s distinguishing perfection

Honor’s a fine imaginary notion, that draws in raw and unexperienced men to real mischiefs.

Our delight in any particular study, art, or science rises and improves in proportion to the application which we bestow upon it. Thus, what was at first an exercise becomes at length an entertainment.

This not in mortals to command success, but we’ll do more, Sempronius, we’ll deserve it.

One of the most important but one of the most difficult things for a powerful mind is to be its own master.

In private conversation between intimate friends, the wisest men very often talk like the weakest : for indeed the talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.

Music, the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have hear below.

True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.

What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life’s pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.

There is not a more pleasing exercise of the mind than gratitude. It is accompanied with such an inward satisfaction that the duty is sufficiently rewarded by the performance

it would generally be found that he had suffered more from the apprehension of such evils as never happened to him than from those evils which had really befallen him.

I never knew an early-rising, hard-working, prudent man, careful of his earnings and strictly honest, who complained of hard luck.

Encourage innocent amusement.

An evil intention perverts the best actions, and makes them sins.