The absent are never without fault, nor the present without excuse.

He does not possess wealth; it possesses him.

A child thinks 20 shillings and 20 years can scarce ever be spent.

He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book.

When befriended, remember it; when you befriend, forget it.

Our necessities never equal our wants.

The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice.

The first mistake in public business is the going into it.

Applause waits on success.

For my own part, I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen the representative of our country. He is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly.

Each year one vicious habit discarded, in time might make the worst of us good.

In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride.

You can bear your own faults, and why not a fault in your wife?

There never was a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.

If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher’s stone.

As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence.

Observe all men, thyself most.

He that speaks much, is much mistaken.

From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ my first collection was of John Bunyan’s works in separate little volumes.

All who think cannot but see there is a sanction like that of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious work of the world.