Religion being the chief band of human society, it is a happy thing, when itself is well contained within the true band of unity.

Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced.

The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.

For the discovery of a man's self, by the tracts of his countenance, is a great weakness and betraying; by how much it is many times more marked, and believed, than a man's words.

In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.

In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.

There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.

Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly.

God hangs the greatest weights upon the smallest wires.

Fortitude is the marshal of thought, the armor of the will, and the fort of reason.

Knowledge and human power are synonymous.

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.

Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.

He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other.

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.

The genius, wit, and the spirit of a nation are discovered by their proverbs.

Who ever is out of patience is out of possession of their soul.

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted ... but to weigh and consider.

It is generally better to deal by speech than by letter; and by the mediation of a third than by a man's self.

For better it is to make a beginning of that which may lead to something, than to engage in a perpetual struggle and pursuit in courses which have no exit.

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.

Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.

Let not the sun go down upon your anger. Anger must be limited and confined, both in race and in time.

Wonder is the seed of knowledge.

The less people speak of their greatness, the more we think of it.

A man must make his opportunity, as oft as find it.

He that hath knowledge spareth his words.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

As the births of living creatures are at first ill-shapen, so are all innovations, which are the births of time.

The mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands.

Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom.

God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of the grave.

The great end of life is not knowledge but action.

Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.

Without friends the world is but a wilderness. There is no man that imparteth his joys to his friends, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his grieves to his friend, but he grieveth the less.

A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open.

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or else what's a heaven for?

I find earth not gray but rosy; Heaven not grim but fair of hue. Do I stoop? I pluck a posy; Do I stand and stare? All's blue.

Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be.

Life with all it yields of joy and woe, And hope and fear, Is just our chance o’ the prize of learning love, How love might be, hath been indeed, and is.

Why stay we on earth except to grow?

When a man’s busy, why, leisure Strikes him as wonderful pleasure: ‘Faith, and at leisure once is he? Straightway he wants to be busy.

Who was a queen and loved a poet once Humpbacked, a dwarf? ah, women can do that!

Truth is within ourselves…there is an inmost center in us all..where truth abides in fulness--and to know,rather consists in open out a way whence the imprisoned splendor may escape

Womanliness means only motherhood; All love begins and ends there.

A man's reach should exceed his grasp

Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more, One task more declin'd, one more foot-path ontrod, One more devil's triumph and sorrow for angels, One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!

What if all's appearance? Is not outside seeming real as substance inside? Both are facts, so leave me dreaming.