"Let him who desires to see others happy, make haste to give while his gift can be enjoyed, and remember that every moment of delay takes away something from the value of his benefaction"

"Idleness and timidity often despair without being overcome, and forbear attempts for fear of being defeated; and we may promote the invigoration of faint endeavors, by showing what has already been performed"

"Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present"

"Small debts are like small gun shot; they are rattling around us on all sides and one can scarcely escape being wounded. Large debts are like canons, they produce a loud noise, but are of little danger."

"I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's virtues the means of deceiving him."

"If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance."

"I have always said, the first Whig was the Devil"

"We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting."

"He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts."

"Our aspirations are our possibilities."

"Beauty has often overpowered the resolutions of the firm, and the reasonings of the wise, roused the old to sensibility, and subdued the rigorous to softness"

"More knowledge may be gained of a man's real character by a short conversation with one of his servants than from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his pedigree and ended with his funeral."

"He who waits to do a great deal of good at once, will never do anything."

"You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense of their labor, than when you give money merely in charity."

"There are charms made only for distance admiration."

"It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust."

"He that tries to recommend (Shakespeare) by select quotations, will succeed like the pedant in "Hierocles", who, when he offered his house to sale, carried a brick in his pocket as a specimen"

"Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings"

"Life has no pleasure higher or nobler than that of friendship"

"Always set high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you."

"I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance."

"Never, my dear Sir, do you take it into your head that I do not love you; you may settle yourself in full confidence both of my love and my esteem; I love you as a kind man, I value you as a worthy man, and hope in time to reverence you as a man of exemplary piety."

"The endearing elegance of female friendship."

"To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of the weary pilgrimage."

"Sir, he throws away his money without thought and without merit. I do not call a tree generous that sheds its fruit at every breeze."

"No greater felicity can genius attain than that of having purified intellectual pleasure, separated mirth from indecency, and wit from licentiousness"

"Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any degree; only about as much as is used in the lowest kinds of poetry. Some penetration, accuracy, and coloring, will fit a man for the task, if he can give the application which is necessary."

"If I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many things to please him."

"He who understands baboons would do more towards metaphysics than Locke."

"In conclusion, it appears that nothing can be more improving to a young naturalist, than a journey in distant countries."

"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself whether I may have not devoted myself to a fantasy."

"One hand has surely worked throughout the universe."

"A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question."

"It is difficult to believe in the dreadful but quiet war lurking just below the serene facade of nature."

"But then arises the doubt, can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?"

"The limit of man's knowledge in any subject possesses a high interest which is perhaps increased by its close neighbourhood to the realms of imagination."

"I have always maintained that, excepting fools, men did not differ much in intellect, only in zeal and hard work; and I still think there is an eminently important difference."

"But a plant on the edge of a deserts is said to struggle for life against the drought, though more properly it should be said to be dependent upon the moisture."

"A grain in the balance will determine which individual shall live and which shall die - which variety or species shall increase in number, and which shall decrease, or finally become extinct."

"Englishmen rarely cry, except under the pressure of the acutest grief; whereas in some parts of the Continent the men shed tears much more readily and freely."

"What wretched doings come from the ardor of fame; the love of truth alone would never make one man attack another bitterly."

"It is necessary to look forward to a harvest, however distant that may be, when some fruit will be reaped, some good effected."

"Such simple instincts as bees making a beehive could be sufficient to overthrow my whole theory."

"I have stated, that in the thirteen species of ground-finches, a nearly perfect gradation may be traced, from a beak extraordinarily thick, to one so fine, that it may be compared to that of a warbler."

"Our descent, then, is the origin of our evil passions!! The devil under form of Baboon is our grandfather."

"The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient."

"How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!"

"...ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge..."

"Or she may accept, as appearances would sometimes lead us to believe, not the male which is the most attractive to her, but the one which is the least distasteful."

"One may say there is a force like a hundred thousand wedges..."