Glory consists of two parts: the one in setting too great a value upon ourselves, and the other in setting too little a value upon others.
We are nearer neighbors to ourselves than the whiteness of snow or the weight of stones are to us: if man does not know himself, how should he know his functions and powers?
If health and a fair day smile upon me, I am a very good fellow; if a corn trouble my toe, I am sullen, out of humor, and inaccessible.
The truth of these days is not that which really is, but what every man persuades another man to believe.
It is no hard matter to get children; but after they are born, then begins the trouble, solicitude, and care rightly to train, principle, and bring them up.
Virtue cannot be followed but for herself, and if one sometimes borrows her mask to some other purpose, she presently pulls it away again.
In love, ’tis no other than frantic desire for that which flies from us.
I do myself a greater injury in lying than I do him of whom I tell a lie.
The world is all a carcass and vanity, The shadow of a shadow, a play And in one word, just nothing.
No pleasure has any savor for me without communication.
How many condemnations I have witnessed more criminal than the crime!
It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.
The way of the world is to make laws, but follow custom.
We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.
Ignorance is the softest pillow on which a man can rest his head.
Any person of honor chooses rather to lose his honor than to lose his conscience.
The thing I fear most is fear.
Let us not be ashamed to speak what we shame not to think.
It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.
Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of soul, impossible.