Contentment Is Better Than Divinations Or Visions.

I Delight In The Diffusion Of Learning; Yet, I Must Confess It, I Am Most Gratified And Transported At Finding A Large Quantity Of It In One Place; Just As I Would Rather Have A Solid Pat Of Butter At Breakfast, Than A Splash Of Grease Upon The Table-cloth That Covers Half Of It.

Whatever Is Worthy To Be Loved For Anything Is Worthy Of Preservation. A Wise And Dispassionate Legislator, If Any Such Should Ever Arise Among Men, Will Not Condemn To Death Him Who Has Done Or Is Likely To Do More Service Than Injury To Society. Blocks And Gibbets Are The Nearest Objects With Legislators, And Their Business Is Never With Hopes Or With Virtues.

Ambition Is But Avarice On Stilts, And Masked. God Sometimes Sends A Famine, Sometimes A Pestilence, And Sometimes A Hero, For The Chastisement Of Mankind; None Of Them Surely For Our Admiration.

We Cannot At Once Catch The Applauses Of The Vulgar And Expect The Approbation Of The Wise.

Let Me Take Up Your Metaphor. Friendship Is A Vase, Which, When It Is Flawed By Heat Or Violence Or Accident, May As Well Be Broken At Once; It Can Never Be Trusted After. The More Graceful And Ornamental It Was, The More Clearly Do We Discern The Hopelessness Of Restoring It To Its Former State. Coarse Stones, If They Are Fractured, May Be Cemented Again; Precious Stones, Never.