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True dignity is never gained by place, and never lost when honors are withdrawn

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Oft expectation fails, and most oft where most it promises; and oft it hits where hope is coldest; and despair most sits.

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To succeed in the world, it is much more necessary to possess the penetration to discern who is a fool, than to discover who is a clever man.

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All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse.

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We love in others what we lack ourselves, and would be everything but what we are.

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Through every rift of discovery some seeming anomaly drops out of the darkness, and falls, as a golden link, into the great chain of order.

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There are many shining qualities on the mind of man; but none so useful as discretion. It is this which gives a value to all the rest, and sets them at work in their proper places, and turns them to the advantage of their possessor. Without it, learning is pedantry; wit, impertinence; virtue itself looks like weakness; and the best parts only qualify a man to be more sprightly in errors, and active to his own prejudice. Though a man has all other perfections and wants discretion, he will be of no great consequence in the world; but if he has this single talent in perfection, and but a common share of others, he may do what he pleases in his station of life.

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Free and fair discussion will ever be found the firmest friend to truth.

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The pain of dispute exceeds, by much, its utility. All disputation makes the mind deaf, and when people are deaf I am dumb.

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He that is not open to conviction, is not qualified for discussion.

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