Worldly wisdom dictates to her disciples the propriety of dressing somewhat beyond their means, but of living somewhat within them.
Atheism is a system which can communicate neither warmth nor illumination, except from those fagots which your mistaken zeal has lighted up for its destruction.
In life we shall find many men that are great, and some that are good, but very few men that are both great and good.
Secrecy is the soul of all great designs.
They that are loudest in their threats are the weakest in the execution of them. It is probable that he who is killed by lightning hears no noise; but the thunder-clap which follows, and which most alarms the ignorant, is the surest proof of their safety.
If we look backwards to antiquity it should be as those that are winning a race.
Bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret.
In all countries where nature does the most, man does the least.
It is not every man that can afford to wear a shabby coat.
When we are in the company of sensible men, we ought to be doubly cautious of talking too much, lest we lose two good things, their good opinion and our own improvement; for what we have to say we know, but what they have to say we know not.
Mystery magnifies danger as the fog the sun.
How strange it is that we of the present day are constantly praising that past age which our fathers abused, and as constantly abusing that present age, which our children will praise.
Some indeed there are who profess to despise all flattery, but even these are nevertheless to be flattered, by being told that they do despise it.
Fashions smile has given wit to dullness and grace to deformity, and has brought everything into vogue, by turns, but virtue.
A wise man may be duped as well as a fool; but the fool publishes the triumph of the deceiver.
Those graces which from their presumed facility encourage all to attempt an imitation of them, are usually the most inimitable.
God is as great in minuteness as He is in magnitude.
Honor is unstable and seldom the same; for she feeds upon opinion, and is as fickle as her food.
True goodness is not without that germ of greatness that can bear with patience the mistakes of the ignorant.
Pity a thing often avowed, seldom felt; hatred is a thing often felt, seldom avowed.