Envy is but the smoke of low estate, Ascending still against the fortunate.

Good-humor is allied to generosity, ill-humor to meanness.

Good-humor will sometimes conquer ill-humor, but ill-humor will conquer it oftener; and for this plain reason, good-humor must operate on generosity, ill-humor on meanness.

Despair gives the shocking ease to the mind that a mortification gives to the body.

Discernment is a power of the understanding in which few excel. Is not that owing to its connection with impartiality and truth? for are not prejudice and partiality blind?

To divest one's self of some prejudices would be like taking off the skin to feel the better.

Avarice starves its possessor to fatten those who come after, and who are eagerly awaiting the demise of the accumulator.

Our companions please us less from the charms we find in their conversation than from those they find in ours.

What an argument in favor of social connections is the observation that by communicating our grief we have less, and by communicating our pleasure we have more.

A lively and agreeable man has not only the merit of liveliness and agreeableness himself, but that also of awakening them in others.

It is not enough that you can form nay, and follow, the most excellent rules for conducting yourself in the world. You must also know when to deviate from them, and where lies the exception.

In the joy of others lies our own, In the progress of others rests our own, In the good of others abides our own, Know this to be the key to peace and happiness

Too many people want to have one foot in the world and one foot in the kingdom of God, and it is like straddling a fence. You are not happy either way. Declare yourself for Christ.

He chose illness, because he knew of no other way to be seen. Not even by those looking at him.

Having a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing seems to me to be one of the most basic principles that you can adopt to contribute to individual and world peace.

When you don't share your problems, you resent hearing the problems of other people.

I'm not just a fan of the really restored ones, the shiny ones. But I like the working man's cars.

And the president should be doing more about education than saying, 'Lights, camera, action.'

I suppose anyone who has ever written a travel book has had the experience of being accosted by a reader with blood in his eye and a lawsuit in his voice.

Whatever my doubts, however heavy the burden, I feel that I must accept the task of helping to make this nation and this world a better place to live in - for all men, black and white alike.