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

The hours of a wise man are lengthened by his ideas.

Were a man’s sorrows and disquietudes summed up at the end of his life.

What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the human soul.

Content thyself to be obscurely good.

The utmost extent of man’s knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing.

The most skillful flattery is to let a person talk on, and be a listener.

Nothing that isn’t a real crime makes a man appear so contemptible and little in the eyes of the world as inconsistency.

Man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.

There are many more shining qualities in the mind of man, but there is none so useful as discretion.

We are growing serious, and, let me tell you, that’s the very next step to being dull.

There is not any present moment that is unconnected with some future one. The life of every man is a continued chain of incidents, each link of which hangs upon the former.

Knowledge is, indeed, that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another.

Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.

A true critic ought to dwell rather upon excellencies than imperfections

Artificial intelligence will never be a match for natural stupidity.

There is nothing that makes its way more directly into the soul than beauty.

There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances.

It is important to receive God’s arrangement in the circumstances. This arrangement is the discipline of the Holy Spirit. To escape God’s arrangement just one time is to lose an opportunity to have our capacity enlarged. A believer can never be the same after passing through suffering.

For, the circumference of one of these little Animals in water, is not so big as the thickness of a hair in a Cheese-mite.

The whole circumference of each of these streaks was about the thickness of a hair of one’s head. … all consisted of very small green globules joined together: and there were very many small green globules as well. [The earliest recorded observation of the common green alga Spyrogyra.]

But that external consummation is not given to many: nor is it necessary.

Circumstances may cause interruptions and delays, but never lose sight of your goal.

Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men. We are free agents, and man is more powerful than matter.

Circumstances are beyond human control, but our conduct is in our own power.