1. “Admiration is a very short-lived passion that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object, unless it be still fed with fresh discoveries, and kept alive by a new perpetual succession of miracles rising up to its view.”
2. “A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart, his next to escape the censures of the world.”
3. “A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.”
4. “Beauty soon grows familiar to the lover,Fades in his eye, and palls upon the sense.”
5. “Blesses his stars, and thinks it luxury.”
6. “Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.”
7. "Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious menbear sway, the post of honour is a private station."
8. “Eternity! thou pleasing dreadful thought!Through what variety of untried being,Through what new scenes and changes must we pass!”
9. “Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed.”
10. “If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother and hope your guardian genius.”
11. “It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.”
12. “It must be so--Plato, thou reasonest well!--Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,This longing after immortality?Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,O falling into nought? Why shrinks the soulBack on herself, and startles at destruction?'Tis the divinity that stirs within us;'Tis heaven itself, that points out an hereafter,And intimates eternity to man.”
13. “I value my garden more for being full [of] blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.”
14. “Knowledge is, indeed, that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another.”
15. “Mysterious love, uncertain treasure,Hast thou more of pain or pleasure!. . . .Endless torments dwell above thee:Yet who would live, and live without thee!”
16. “Of all the diversions of life, there is none so proper to fill up its empty spaces as the reading of useful and entertaining authors.”
17. “Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures.”
18. “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.”
19. “The pleasantest part of a man's life is generally that which passes in courtship, provided his passion be sincere, and the party beloved, kind, with discretion. Love, desire, hope, all the pleasing motions of the soul, rise in the pursuit.”
20. “There is not any present moment that is unconnected with some future one. The life of every man is a continued chain of incidents, each link of which hangs upon the former. The transition from cause to effect, from event to event, is often carried on by secret steps, which our foresight cannot divine, and our sagacity is unable to trace. Evil may at some future period bring forth good; and good may bring forth evil, both equally unexpected.”
21. “There is nothing that makes its way more directly to the soul than beauty.”
22. “The stars shall fade away, the sun himselfGrow dim with age, and nature sink in years,But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,Unhurt amidst the wars of elements,The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.”
23. “The utmost extent of man's knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing.”
24. "Tis heaven itself, that points out an hereafter,And intimates eternity to man.Eternity! Thou pleasing, dreadful thought!"
25. “Thus I live in the world rather as a spectator of mankind than as one of the species.”
26. “True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self; and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.”
27. ”What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. They are but trifles, to be sure; but, scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.”
28. “When love's well-timed 'tis not a fault of love;The strong, the brave, the virtuous, and the wise,Sink in the soft captivity together.”
29. “When love once pleads admission to our hearts,(In spite of all the virtue we can boast),The woman that deliberates is lost.”
