A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this world: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else.
Where all is but dream, reasoning and arguments are of no use, truth and knowledge nothing.
Few men think, yet all will have opinions. Hence men's opinions are superficial and confused.
All men are liable to error; and most men are, in many points, by passion or interest, under temptation to it.
The improvement of understanding is for two ends: first, our own increase of knowledge; secondly, to enable us to deliver that knowledge to others.
I have spent more than half a lifetime trying to express the tragic moment.
Things of this world are in so constant a flux, that nothing remains long in the same state.
We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.
We should have a great fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves.
I attribute the little I know to my not having been ashamed to ask for information, and to my rule of conversing with all descriptions of men on those topics that form their own peculiar professions and pursuits.
Reverie is when ideas float in our mind without reflection or regard of the understanding.
New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
The Bible is one of the greatest blessings bestowed by God on the children of men. It has God for its author; salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture for its matter. It is all pure.
Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.
To prejudge other men's notions before we have looked into them is not to show their darkness but to put out our own eyes.
An excellent man, like precious metal, is in every way invariable; A villain, like the beams of a balance, is always varying, upwards and downwards.
Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves have poisoned the fountain.
There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men.
Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself.
Our incomes are like our shoes; if too small, they gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble and to trip.
Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him.