The whole family of pride and ignorance are incestuous, and mutually beget each other.
Sometimes the greatest adversities turn out to be the greatest blessings.
Forgiveness, that noblest of all self-denial, is a virtue which he alone who can practise in himself can willingly believe in another.
He that sympathizes in all the happiness of others, perhaps himself enjoys the safest happiness.
Most females will forgive a liberty rather than a slight.
Tomorrow! It is a period nowhere to be found in all the registers of time, unless, perchance, in the fool’s calendar.
The interests of society often render it expedient not to utter the whole truth, the interests of science never: for in this field we have much more to fear from the deficiency of truth than from its abundance.
Nobility of birth does not always insure a corresponding unity of mind; if it did, it would always act as a stimulus to noble actions; but it sometimes acts as a clog rather than a spur.
If you want enemies, excel others; if you want friends, let others excel you.
Kings and their subjects, masters and slaves, find a common level in two places – at the foot of the cross, and in the grave.
We should choose our books as we would our companions, for their sterling and intrinsic merit.
Men are more readily contented with no intellectual light than with a little; and wherever they have been taught to acquire some knowledge in order to please others, they have most generally gone on to acquire more, to please themselves.
Mathematicians have sought knowledge in figures, Philosophers in systems, Logicians in subtleties, and Metaphysicians in sounds. It is not in any nor in all of these. He that studies only men, will get the body of knowledge without the soul, and he that studies only books, the soul without the body.
A man who knows the world will not only make the most of everything he does know, but of many things he does not know, and will gain more credit by his adroit mode of hiding his ignorance than the pedant by his awkward attempt to exhibit his erudition.
Philosophy is a bully that talks loud when the danger is at a distant; but, the moment she is pressed hard by an enemy, she is nowhere to be found and leaves the brunt of the battle to be fought by her steady, humble comrade, religion.
The sun should not set upon our anger, neither should he rise upon our confidence. We should forgive freely, but forget rarely. I will not be revenged, and this I owe to my enemy; but I will remember, and this I owe to myself.
It is the briefest yet wisest maxim which tells us to meddle not.
Nothing is more durable than the dynasty of Doubt; for he reigns in the hearts of all his people, but gives satisfaction to none of them, and yet he is the only despot who can never die, while any of his subjects live.
Levity is often less foolish and gravity less wise than each of them appears.
He that thinks he is the happiest man, really is so. But he that thinks he is the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.