Commerce flourishes by circumstances, precarious, transitory, contingent, almost as the winds and waves that bring it to our shores.

Our income are like our shoes; if too small, they gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble and trip.

When millions applaud you seriously ask yourself what harm you have done; and when they disapprove you, what good.

There are some frauds so well conducted that it would be stupidity not to be deceived by them.

The greatest friend of truth is Time, her greatest enemy is Prejudice, and her constant companion is Humility.

I'm aiming by the time I'm fifty to stop being an adolescent.

Constant success shows us but one side of the world; adversity brings out the reverse of the picture.

We often pretend to fear what we really despise, and more often despise what we really fear.

Avarice has ruined more souls than extravagance.

Doubt is the vestibule through which all must pass before they can enter into the temple of wisdom.

Law and equity are two things which God has joined, but which man has put asunder.

Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship - never.

There are two way of establishing a reputation, one to be praised by honest people and the other to be accused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the first one, because it will always be accompanied by the latter.

Moderation is the inseparable companion of wisdom, but with it genius has not even a nodding acquaintance.

True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.

Nothing so completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity himself, than straightforward and simple integrity in another.

Liberty will not descend to a people; a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.

War kills men, and men deplore the loss; but war also crushes bad principles and tyrants, and so saves societies.

Corruption is like a ball of snow, once it's set a rolling it must increase.

Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.

The firmest of friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame.

To be obliged to beg our daily happiness from others bespeaks a more lamentable poverty than that of him who begs his daily bread.

Those who visit foreign nations, but associate only with their own country-men, change their climate, but not their customs. They see new meridians, but the same men; and with heads as empty as their pockets, return home with traveled bodies, but untravelled minds.

Tyrants have not yet discovered any chains that can fetter the mind.

Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.

He that is good, will infallibly become better, and he that is bad, will as certainly become worse; for vice, virtue and time are three things that never stand still.

The excess of our youth are checks written against our age and they are payable with interest thirty years later.

Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; they made no such demand upon those who wrote them.

To know a man, observe how he wins his object, rather than how he loses it; for when we fail, our pride supports us - when we succeed, it betrays us.

Life isn't like a book. Life isn't logical or sensible or orderly. Life is a mess most of the time. And theology must be lived in the midst of that mess.

The mistakes of the fool are known to the world, but not to himself. The mistakes of the wise man are known to himself, but not to the world.

To write what is worth publishing, to find honest people to publish it, and get sensible people to read it, are the three great difficulties in being an author.

Death is the liberator of him whom freedom cannot release, the physician of him whom medicine cannot cure, and the comforter of him whom time cannot console.

The consequences of things are not always proportionate to the apparent magnitude of those events that have produced them. Thus the American Revolution, from which little was expected, produced much; but the French Revolution, from which much was expected, produced little.

No company is preferable to bad. We are more apt to catch the vices of others than virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.

True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander.

The present time has one advantage over every other - it is our own.

There is this difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man, really is so; but he that thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.

Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish.

Physical courage, which despises all danger, will make a man brave in one way; and moral courage, which despises all opinion, will make a man brave in another.

There are three modes of bearing the ills of life, by indifference, by philosophy, and by religion.

Many speak the truth when they say that they despise riches, but they mean the riches possessed by others.

Knowledge is two-fold, and consists not only in an affirmation of what is true, but in the negation of that which is false.

If a horse has four legs, and I'm riding it, I think I can win.

Men's arguments often prove nothing but their wishes.

There is nothing more imprudent than excessive prudence.

Suicide sometimes proceeds from cowardice, but not always; for cowardice sometimes prevents it; since as many live because they are afraid to die, as die because they are afraid to live.

Those that are the loudest in their threats are the weakest in their actions.

Happiness, that grand mistress of the ceremonies in the dance of life, impels us through all its mazes and meanderings, but leads none of us by the same route.