Where you are is of no moment, but only what you are doing there. It is not the place that ennobles you, but you the place, and this only by doing that which is great and noble.

Books come at my call and return when I desire them; they are never out of humor and they answer all my questions with readiness. Some present in review before me the events of past ages; others reveal to me the secrets of Nature. These teach me how to live, and those how to die;

For virtue only finds eternal Fame.

Virtue is health, vice is sickness.

Five great enemies to peace inhabit with us: vice, avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride. If those enemies were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace.

Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life, and is prophetic of eternal good.

I know and love the good, yet ah! the worst pursue.

How difficult it is to save the bark of reputation from the rocks of ignorance.

Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.