"Perpetual levity must end in ignorance; and intemperance, though it may fire the spirits for an hour, will make life short or miserable. Let us consider that youth is of no long duration, and that in maturer age, when the enchantments of fancy shall cease, and phantoms of delight dance no more about us, we shall have no comforts but the esteem of wise men, and the means of doing good. Let us, therefore, stop, while to stop is in our power: let us live as men who are sometime to grow old, and to whom it will be the most dreadful of all evils not to count their past years but by follies, and to be reminded of their former luxuriance of health only by the maladies which riot has produced."

"Their mirth was without images, their laughter without motive; their pleasures were gross and sensual, in which the mind had no part; their conduct was at once wild and mean; they laughed at order and at law, but the frown of power dejected, and the eye of wisdom abashed them. The prince soon concluded, that he should never be happy in a course of life of which he was ashamed. He thought it unsuitable to a reasonable being to act without a plan, and to be sad or chearful only by chance. “Happiness, said he, must be something solid and permanent, without fear and without uncertainty.”"

"Very few live by choice. Every man is placed in his present condition by causes which acted without his foresight and with which he did not always willingly cooperate."

"The causes of good and evil are so various and uncertain, so often entangled with each other, so diversified by various relations, and so much subject to accidents which cannot be foreseen, that he who would fix his condition upon incontestable reasons of preference must live and die inquiring and deliberating."

"In the assembly, where you passed the last night, there appeared such spriteliness of air, and volatility of fancy, as might have suited beings of an higher order, formed to inhabit serener regions inaccessible to care or sorrow. Yet, believe me, there was not one who did not dread the moment when solitude should deliver him to the tyranny of reflection."

"Knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanicks laughs at strength."

"Few things are impossible to diligence and skill."

"A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected."

"Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect."

"In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it."

"To convince any man against his will is hard, but to please him against his will is justly pronounced by Dryden to be above the reach of human abilities."

"There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified, and new prejudices to be opposed."

"As it is necessary not to invite robbery by supineness, so it is our duty not to suppress tenderness by suspicion; it is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust."

"To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution."

"Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, of sickness, or captivity, would, without this comfort, be insupportable; nor does it appear that the happiest lot of terrestrial existence can set us above the want of this general blessing; or that life, when the gifts of nature and of fortune are accumulated upon it, would not still be wretched, were it not elevated and delighted by the expectation of some new possession, of some enjoyment yet behind, by which the wish shall at last be satisfied, and the heart filled up to its utmost extent."

"Frugality may be termed the daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance and the parent of Liberty."

"He that would pass the latter part of life with honour and decency, must, when he is young, consider that he shall one day be old; and remember, when he is old, that he has once been young."

"The student who would build his knowledge on solid foundations, and proceed by just degrees to the pinnacles of truth, is directed by the great philosopher of France to begin by doubting of his own existence. In like manner, whoever would complete any arduous and intricate enterprise, should, as soon as his imagination can cool after the first blaze of hope, place before his own eyes every possible embarrassment that may retard or defeat him. He should first question the probability of success, and then endeavour to remove the objections that he has raised."

"All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance: it is by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that distant countries are united with canals. If a man was to compare the effect of a single stroke of the pick-axe, or of one impression of the spade, with the general design and last result, he would be overwhelmed by the sense of their disproportion; yet those petty operations, incessantly continued, in time surmount the greatest difficulties, and mountains are levelled, and oceans bounded, by the slender force of human beings. It is therefore of the utmost importance that those, who have any intention of deviating from the beaten roads of life, and acquiring a reputation superior to names hourly swept away by time among the refuse of fame, should add to their reason, and their spirit, the power of persisting in their purposes; acquire the art of sapping what they cannot batter, and the habit of vanquishing obstinate resistance by obstinate attacks."

"A transition from an author's book to his conversation, is too often like an entrance into a large city, after a distant prospect. Remotely, we see nothing but spires of temples and turrets of palaces, and imagine it the residence of splendour, grandeur and magnificence; but when we have passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded with smoke."

"Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed."

"With these celestial Wisdom calms the mind, And makes the happiness she does not find."

"For patience, sov'reign o'er transmuted ill."

"Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate, Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate?"

"Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise! From Marlb'rough's eyes the streams of dotage flow, And Swift expires, a driv'ler and a show."

"Superfluous lags the vet'ran on the stage."

"An age that melts in unperceiv'd decay, And glides in modest innocence away."

""Enlarge my life with multitude of days!" In health, in sickness, thus the suppliant prays: Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know That life protracted is protracted woe."

"He left the name at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a tale."

"A frame of adamant, a soul of fire, No dangers fright him, and no labors tire."

"Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause a while from learning to be wise. There mark what ills the scholar's life assail — Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail."

"But, scarce observ'd, the knowing and the bold Fall in the gen'ral massacre of gold."

"Let observation with extensive view Survey mankind, from China to Peru."

"Ah! let not Censure term our fate our choice, The stage but echoes back the public's voice; The drama's laws the drama's patrons give, For we that live to please must please to live."

"Declamation roared, while Passion slept."

"Cold approbation gave the ling'ring bays, For those who durst not censure, scarce could praise."

"When learning's triumph o'er her barb'rous foes First reared the stage, immortal Shakespeare rose; Each change of many-colored life he drew, Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new: Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, And panting Time toiled after him in vain."

"The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to remove."

"There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity."

"The richest author that ever grazed the common of literature."

"It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world."

"A desire for knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind; and every human being, whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to give all he has to get knowledge."

"Let me rejoice in the light which Thou hast imparted; let me serve Thee with active zeal, humbled confidence, and wait with patient expectation for the time in which the soul which Thou receivest shall be satisfied with knowledge."

"From Thee, great God: we spring, to Thee we tend, Path, motive, guide, original, and end."

"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."

"Ignorance in other men may be censured as idleness, in an academick it must be abhorred as treachery."

"Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult."

"A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek."

"I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read."

"Round numbers are always false."