“...but a mind of usefulness and ingenuity seemed to furnish him with constant employment within.”

“The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence.”

“The object most interesting to me for the residue of my life, will be to see you both developing daily those principles of virtue and goodness which will make you valuable to others and happy in yourselves, and acquiring those talents and that degree of science which will guard you at all times against ennui, the most dangerous poison of life. A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe for felicity....In a world which furnishes so many employments which are useful, and so many which are amusing, it is our own fault if we ever know what ennui is...”

“I had rather fashion my mind than furnish it.”

“I do not need the debris of your mind to furnish mine.”

“Through the ingenuousness of her age beamed an ardent mind, a mind not of the women but of the poet; she did not please, she intoxicated.”