“It is not often the worst trait that occasions the loudest outcry. Men complain of their suffering and not of the crime.”

“The soul is no traveller; the wise man stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still, and shall make men sensible by the expression of his countenance, that he goes the missionary of wisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a sovereign, and not like an interloper or a valet.”

“No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.”

“Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass.”

“Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.”

“Some men's words I remember so well that I must often use them to express my thought. Yes, because I perceive that we have heard the same truth, but they have heard it better.”

“Every industrious man, in every lawful calling, is a useful man. And one principal reason why men are so often useless is that they neglect their own profession or calling, and divide and shift their attention among a multiplicity of objects and pursuits.”