The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves.
Time is the measurer of all things, but is itself immeasurable, and the grand discloser of all things, but is itself undisclosed.
Time,- that black and narrow isthmus between two eternities.
We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine, but if defer tasting them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.
By privileges, immunities, or prerogatives to give unlimited swing to the passions of individuals, and then to hope that they will restrain them, is about as reasonable as to expect that the tiger will spare the hart to browse upon the herbage.
Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others; it is a fatal but common error.
The next thing to having wisdom ourselves, is to profit by that of others.
Antithesis may be the blossom of wit, but it will never arrive at maturity unless sound sense be the trunk and truth the root.
The plainest man who pays attention to women, will sometimes succeed as well as the handsomest man who does not.
A high degree of intellectual refinement in the female is the surest pledge society can have for the improvement of the male.
Words are in this respect like water, that they often take their taste, flavour, and character, from the mouth out of which they proceed, as the water from the channel through which it flows.
An honest man will continue to be so though surrounded on all sides by rogues.
Oppression cannot prosper where none will submit to be enslaved.
A society composed of none but the wicked could not exist; it contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction, and without a flood, would be swept away from the earth by the deluge of its own iniquity.
The temple of truth is built indeed of stones of crystal, but, inasmuch as men have been concerned in rearing it, it has been consolidated by a cement composed of baser materials.
Our wealth is often a snare to ourselves, and always a temptation to others.
Princes rule the people, and their own passions rule Princes; but Providence can over-rule the whole, and draw the instruments of his inscrutable purposes from the vices, no less than the virtues of Kings.
False reasoners are often best confuted by giving them the full swing of their own absurdities.
To be continually subject to the breath of slander, will tarnish the purest virtue, as a constant exposure to the atmosphere will obscure the brightness of the finest gold; but in either case, the real value of both continues the same, although the currency may be somewhat impeded.
When a man has displayed talent in some particular path, and left all competitors behind him in it, the world are too apt to give him credit for universality of genius, and to anticipate for him success in all that he undertakes.