All quotes

Work in moderation is healthy, as well as agreeable to the human constitution.

hope, which is the companion of power, and the mother of success; for whoso hopes strongly has within him the gift of miracles.

Self-respect, originating in self-love, instigates the first step of improvement.

There is a dignity in the very effort to save with a worthy purpose, even though the attempt should not be crowned with eventual success.

Thrift does not require superior courage, nor superior intellect, nor any superhuman virtue.

It is during our most challenging and uncertain moments that our Nation's commitment to due process is most severely tested; and it is in those times that we must preserve our commitment at home to the principles for which we fight abroad.

Do not, I beg you, dread those things which the immortal gods apply to our minds like spurs: misfortune is virtue's opportunity.

Fortune lashes and mangles us: well, let us endure it: it is not cruelty, it is a struggle, in which the oftener we engage the braver we shall become.

Misfortunes press hardest on those who are unacquainted with them: the yoke feels heavy to the tender neck.

A good conscience fears no witnesses, but a guilty conscience is solicitous even of solitude.

A wise man is never so busy as in the solitary contemplation of God and the works of Nature.

Beside, that the ills which he fears he may suffer, he suffers in the very fear of them.

Business that is ready and practicable goes off with ease; but when it is too heavy for the bearer, they fall both together.

Can there be any man so fearful, that had not rather fall once than hang always in suspense?

How many casualties and difficulties are there that we dread as insupportable mischiefs, which, upon farther thoughts, we find to be mercies and benefits?

If we do not watch, we lose our opportunities; if we do not make haste, we are left behind; our best hours escape us, the worst are to come.

In time, the most stubborn grief will leave us, if in prudence we do not leave that first.

Life is a navigation; we are perpetually wallowing and dashing one against another; sometimes we suffer shipwreck, but we are always in danger and in expectation of it.

Not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears, but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is abundantly sufficient; for he that is so, wants nothing.

Oh! the delights of rest when a man comes to be weary, and of meat when he is heartily hungry.

Providence treats us like a generous father, and brings us up to labors, toils, and dangers; whereas the indulgence of a fond mother makes us weak and spiritless.

The ostentation of grief is many times more than the grief itself.

To lament the death of a friend is both natural and just; a sigh or a tear I would allow to his memory: but no profuse or obstinate sorrow.

To mourn without measure is folly, and not to mourn at all is insensibility.

Where the mind is tinctured with philosophy, there is no place for grief, anxiety, or superfluous vexations.