Flattery is often a traffic of mutual meanness, where although both parties intend deception, neither are deceived.
Whenever we find ourselves more inclined to persecute than to persuade, we may then be certain that our zeal has more of pride in it than of charity.
It is far better to borrow experience than to buy it.
Total freedom from error is what none of us will allow to our neighbors; however we may be inclined to flirt a little with such spotless perfection ourselves.
Ignorance is a blank sheet, on which we may write; but error is a scribbled one, on which we must first erase.
Riches may enable us to confer favors, but to confer them with propriety and grace requires a something that riches cannot give.
Religion, like its votaries, while it exists on earth, must have a body as well as a soul. A religion purely spiritual might suit a being as pure, but men are compound animals; and the body too often lords it over the mind.
There are prating coxcombs in the world who would rather talk than listen, although Shakespeare himself were the orator, and human nature the theme!
All preceptors should have that kind of genius described by Tacitus, “equal to their business, but not above it;” a patient industry, with competent erudition; a mind depending more on its correctness than its originality, and on its memory rather than on its invention.
The excesses of our youth are drafts upon our old age.
The inheritance of a distinguished and noble name is a proud inheritance to him who lives worthily of it.
A power above all human responsibility ought to be above all human attainment.
There are many that despise half the world; but if there be any that despise the whole of it, it is because the other half despises them.
Most men know what they hate, few what they love.
He that can please nobody is not so much to be pitied as he that nobody can please.
Let us not be too prodigal when we are young, nor too parsimonious when we are old. Otherwise we shall fall into the common error of those, who, when they had the power to enjoy, had not the prudence to acquire; and when they had the prudence to acquire, had no longer the power to enjoy.
Short as life is, some find it long enough to outlive their characters, their constitutions and their estates.
The brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm.
The reason why great men meet with so little pity or attachment in adversity, would seem to be this: the friends of a great man were made by his fortune, his enemies by himself, and revenge is a much more punctual paymaster than gratitude.
Temperate men drink the most, because they drink the longest.