“A man’s first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart.”

“A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.”

“True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, in the enjoyment of one's self, and, in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.”

“Should the whole frame of nature round him break,In ruin and confusion hurled,He, unconcerned, would hear the mighty crack,And stand secure amidst a falling world.”

“The important question is not, what will yield to man a few scattered pleasures, but what will render his life happy on the whole amount.”

“When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow;”

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.”