“Study depends on the goodwill of the student, a quality that cannot be secured by compulsion.”

Though ambition in itself is a vice, yet it is often the parent of virtues.

We must form our minds by reading deep rather than wide.

While we are examining into everything we sometimes find truth where we least expected it.

It seldom happens that a premature shoot of genius ever arrives at maturity.

Vain hopes are like certain dreams of those who wake.

Forbidden pleasures alone are loved immoderately; when lawful, they do not excite desire.

Everything that has a beginning comes to an end.

He who speaks evil only differs from his who does evil in that he lacks opportunity.

Fear of the future is worse than one’s present fortune.

The obscurity of a writer is generally in proportion to his incapacity.

That which prematurely arrives at perfection soon perishes.

Conscience is a thousand witnesses.

God, that all-powerful Creator of nature and architect of the world, has impressed man with no character so proper to distinguish him from other animals, as by the faculty of speech.

Men of quality are in the wrong to undervalue, as they often do, the practise of a fair and quick hand in writing; for it is no immaterial accomplishment.

One thing, however, I must premise, that without the assistance of natural capacity, rules and precepts are of no efficacy.

A liar should have a good memory.

Somewhere between obsession and compulsion is impulse.

In seasons of tumult and discord bad men have most power; mental and moral excellence require peace and quietness.

By punishing men of talent we confirm their authority.

It is a part of the nature of man to resist compulsion.

Even for learned men, love of fame is the last thing to be given up.

The denial of an objective moral law, based on the compulsion to deny the existence of God, results ultimately in the denial of evil itself.

When we experience the power of the Self, there is an absence of fear, there is no compulsion to control, and no struggle for approval or external power.

It’s a compulsive need to wreck everything. You might notice there’s a pattern of stripping down and building back up again throughout my life. But I guess that’s how some of us conduct our lives.