I must accommodate my history to the hour: I may presently change, not only by fortune, but also by intention.
The knowledge of courtesy and good manners is a very necessary study. It is like grace and beauty, that which begets liking and an inclination to love one another at the first sight.
Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy, inquiry the progress, ignorance the end.
The corruption of the age is made up by the particular contribution of every individual man; some contribute treachery, others injustice, atheism, tyranny, avarice, cruelty, according to their power.
We are never present with, but always beyond ourselves; fear, desire, hope, still push us on toward the future.
Nature is a gentle guide, but not more sweet and gentle than prudent and just.
The beauty of stature is the only beauty of men.
Getting married is very much like going to a restaurant with friends. You order what you want then when you see what the other person has, you wish you had ordered that.
Marriage can be compared to a cage: birds outside it despair to enter, and birds within, to escape.
A lady could not boast of her chastity who was never tempted.
All the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.
Who feareth to suffer suffereth already, because he feareth.
It is the part of cowardliness, and not of virtue, to seek to squat itself in some hollow lurking hole, or to hide herself under some massive tomb, thereby to shun the strokes of fortune.
In the education of children there is nothing like alluring the interest and affection; otherwise you only make so many asses laden with books.
Since I would rather make of him an able man than a learned man, I would also urge that care be taken to choose a guide with a well-made rather than a well-filled head.
Meditation is a rich and powerful method of study for anyone who knows how to examine his mind.
Tis so much to be a king, that he only is so by being so.
Taking it all in all, I find it is more trouble to watch after money than to get it.
Greatness of soul consists not so much in soaring high and in pressing forward, as in knowing how to adapt and limit oneself.
Scratching is one of nature’s sweetest gratifications, and the one nearest at hand.