"Friendship, of itself a holy tie, is made more sacred by adversity."

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

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

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

"Mystery is not profoundness."

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

"Contemporaries appreciate the person rather than their merit, posterity will regard the merit rather than the person."

"If we steal thoughts from the moderns, it will be cried down as plagiarism; if from the ancients, it will be cried up as erudition."

"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."

"Justice to my readers compels me to admit that I write because I have nothing to do; justice to myself induces me to add that I will cease to write the moment I have nothing to say."

"The drafts which true genius draws upon posterity, although they may not always be honored so soon as they are due, are sure to be paid with compound interest in the end."

"It is always safe to learn, even from our enemies; seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends."

"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."

"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."

"The society of dead authors has this advantage over that of the living: they never flatter us to our faces, nor slander us behind our backs, nor intrude upon our privacy, nor quit their shelves until we take them down."

"The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"We hate some persons because we do not know them; and will not know them because we hate them."

"There are three difficulties in authorship: to write anything worth publishing, to find honest men to publish it, and to find sensible men to read it."

"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."

"To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet."

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

"He who studies books alone will know how things ought to be, and he who studies men will know how they are."

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

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

"He that knows himself, knows others; and he that is ignorant of himself, could not write a very profound lecture on other men's heads."

"Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer."

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

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

"Patience is the support of weakness; impatience the ruin of strength."

"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."

"We own almost all our knowledge not to those who have agreed but to those who have differed."

"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."

"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."

"Men's arguments often prove nothing but their wishes."

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

"Times of great calamity and confusion have been productive for the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace. The brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm."

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

"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."

"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."

"Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness when bequeathed by those who, even alive, would part with nothing."

"Our admiration of fine writing will always be in proportion to its real difficulty and its apparent ease."

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

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

"In life we shall find many men that are great, and some that are good, but very few men that are both great and good."

"Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen. Like friends, too, we should return to them again and again for, like true friends, they will never fail us - never cease to instruct - never cloy."