Books have always a secret influence on the understanding; we cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas; he that reads books of science, thogh without any fixed desire of improvement, will grow more knowing...
There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow, but there is something in it so like virtue, that he who is wholly without it cannot be loved.
A man who is good enough to go to heaven is not good enough to be a clergyman.
Our minds should not be empty because if they are not preoccupied by good, evil will break in upon them.
Sir, I do not call a gamester a dishonest man; but I call him an unsociable man, an unprofitable man. Gaming is a mode of transferring property without producing any intermediate good.
Being reproached for giving to an unworthy person, Aristotle said, I did not give it to the man, but to humanity.
As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy.
Try and forget our cares and sickness, and contribute, as we can to the happiness of each other.
I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.
Every other enjoyment malice may destroy; every other panegyric envy may withhold; but no human power can deprive the boaster of his own encomiums.
All envy is proportionate to desire; we are uneasy at the attainments of another, according as we think our own happiness would be advanced by the addition of that which he withholds from us.
A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.
His scorn of the great is repeated too often to be real; no man thinks much of that which he despises.
Sleep undisturbed within the peaceful shrine till angels wake thee with a note like thine.
Few faults of style, whether real or imaginary, excite the malignity of a more numerous class of readers, than the use of hard words.
He knows not his own strength who hath not met adversity.
Your first great duties, you are sensible, are those you owe to Heaven, to your Creator and Redeemer. Let these be ever present to your minds, and exemplified in your lives and conduct.
Make Him your friend and protector and your felicity is secured both here and hereafter. And with respect to particular duties to Him, it is your happiness that you are well assured that he best serves his Maker, who does most good to his country and to mankind.
It seems to be the fate of man to seek all his consolations in futurity.
You can’t be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who’s for you and who’s against you.
I am aware that by many persons, it is considered in the nature of a joke to to become a candidate and to be elected as a member of the Legislature.