“Often have I wondered with much curiosity as to our coming into this world and what will follow our departure.”

And men go about to wonder at the heights of the mountains, and the mighty waves of the sea, and the wide sweep of rivers, and the circuit of the ocean, and the revolution of the stars, but themselves they consider not.

You keep to your own ways and leave mine to me.

It may be only glory that we seek here, but I persuade myself that, as long as we remain here, that is right. Another glory awaits us in heaven and he who reaches there will not wish even to think of earthly fame.

The time will come when every change shall cease, This quick revolving wheel shall rest in peace: No summer then shall glow, not winter freeze; Nothing shall be to come, and nothing past, But an eternal now shall ever last.

All pleasure in the world is a passing dream.

Great errors seldom originate but with men of great minds.

Man has not a greater enemy than himself.

What name to call thee by, O virgin fair, I know not, for thy looks are not of earth And more than mortal seems thy countenances.

I rejoiced in my progress, mourned my weaknesses, and commiserated the universal instability of human conduct.

Where you are is of no moment, but only what you are doing there. It is not the place that ennobles you, but you the place, and this only by doing that which is great and noble.

Man has no greater enemy than himself. I have acted contrary to my sentiments and inclination; throughout our whole lives we do what we never intended, and what we proposed to do, we leave undone.

Perhaps out there, somewhere, someone is sighing for your absence; and with this thought, my soul begins to breathe.

There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen.

Life in itself is short enough, but the physicians with their art, know to their amusement, how to make it still shorter.

I have friends whose society is delightful to me; they are persons of all countries and of all ages; distinguished in war, in council, and in letters; easy to live with, always at my command.

Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life, and is prophetic of eternal good.