“If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.”

I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind.

Love is a second life; it grows into the soul, warms every vein, and beats in every pulse.

Temperance gives nature her full play, and enables her to exert herself in all her force and vigor.

Courage is the thing. All goes if courage goes.

When men are easy in their circumstances, they are naturally enemies to innovations.

The friendships of the world are oft confederacies in vice, or leagues of pleasures.

All well-regulated families set apart an hour every morning for tea and bread and butter

A solid and substantial greatness of soul looks down with neglect on the censures and applauses of the multitude.

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

What an absurd thing it is to pass over all the valuable parts of a man, and fix our attention on his infirmities.

A good character, good habits and iron industry are impregnable to the assaults of all ill-luck that fools ever dreamed.

It is ridiculous for any man to criticize on the works of another, who has not distinguished himself by his own performances.

To this end, nothing is to be more carefully consulted than plainness. In a lady’s attire this is the single excellence; for to be what some people call fine, is the same vice, in that case, as to be florid is in writing or speaking.

A wealthy doctor who can help a poor man, and will not without a fee, has less sense of humanity than a poor ruffian, who kills a rich man to supply his necessities.

Riches expose a man to pride and luxury, and a foolish elation of heart.

They were a people so primitive they did not know how to get money, except by working for it.