We should not be so taken up in the search for truth, as to neglect the needful duties of active life for it is only action that gives a true value and commendation to virtue.
The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.
Nothing is more noble, nothing more venerable than fidelity. Faithfulness and truth are the most sacred excellences and endowments of the human mind.
What then is freedom? The power to live as one wishes.
Death is not natural for a state as it is for a human being, for whom death is not only necessary, but frequently even desirable.
As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth. He that follows this rule may be old in body, but can never b...
What an ugly beast is the ape, and how like us.
To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.
Confidence is that feeling by which the mind embarks in great and honorable courses with a sure hope and trust in itself.
Next to God we are nothing. To God we are Everything.
That last day does not bring extinction to us, but change of place.
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men's [children's] minds take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of...
People do not understand what a great revenue economy is.
Time obliterates the fictions of opinion and confirms the decisions of nature.
The only excuse for war is that we may live in peace unharmed.
We must conceive of this whole universe as one commonwealth of which both gods and men are members.
I add this, that rational ability without education has oftener raised man to glory and virtue, than education without natural ability.
For books are more than books, they are the life, the very heart and core of ages past, the reason why men worked and died, the essence and quintessence of their lives.