“It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.”

I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind – and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.

The confidence in another man’s virtue is no light evidence of a man’s own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.

Covetousness is both the beginning and the end of the devil’s alphabet – the first vice in corrupt nature that moves, and the last which dies.

It is a sign of contraction of the mind when it is content, or of weariness. A spirited mind never stops within itself; it is always aspiring and going beyond its strength.

In true education, anything that comes to our hand is as good as a book.

Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head.

There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.

I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.

When I play with my cat, who knows whether she is not amusing herself with me more than I with her.

How many condemnations I have witnessed more criminal than the crime!

I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.

He who establishes his argument by noise and command shows that his reason is weak.

For truly it is to be noted, that children’s plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their most serious actions.

Confidence in the goodness of another is good proof of one’s own goodness.

The thing I fear most is fear.

Unless a man feels he has a good enough memory, he should never venture to lie.