Good thoughts are apt to vanish away if they be not speedily embodied in good actions.

Conscience is an exact recorder, that writes every man's history; an inward witness, that will sooner or later speak the whole truth; an impartial judge, whose sentence will acquit or condemn.

Selfishness is a swamp that sucks in all and gives out nothing.

He that will be his own master ... must often have a fool for his scholar.

You must receive something of heaven into the soul, before the soul can be received into heaven.

Men have contrived instruments to measure the motion of time, but they have no scales to weigh, no figures to compute, no words to describe its value.

Pride is a cold, stormy, barren mountain.

Let not neither the tears of natural tenderness, nor the sudden terrors of conscious guilt, be mistaken for genuine repentance.

As the circle of friends is enlarged, the bonds of friendship are relaxed and weakened.

The most weighty truths may strike, but without meditation cannot enter and influence the mind.

Faithful, well-written history is a map, in which we trace the winding ways and manifold wonders of divine Providence.

Idleness buries a man alive.

Scourges, racks, and flames, can inflict no pains to be compared with the stings and tortures of a guilty conscience.

A man who is ready to converse but has nothing to say worth hearing, is a well without water; he that is rich in knowledge but reserved is a well without a bucket.

Vanity has many outlets in conversation, but great I is the front door.

Sin in its ordinary progress first deceives, next hardens, and then destroys.

One mild word ... will quench more heat than a bucket of water.

He who clips away a little truth, and puts in a patch of falsehood to make measure, is likely to become a skilful manufacturer of lies.

Meditation is to the mind what exercise is to the body, it warms and invigorates.

The ancients painted time in the form of an old man with a large tuft of hair on his forehead, but bald behind, to teach us, that, if we catch him not as he comes, it will be impossible after he has passed by.

Wicked men by specious errors and intoxicating pleasure contrive to lull conscience into a slumber; but when it wakes, its voice is louder than thunder, and its strokes keener than flashes of lightning.

Cunning is the mere ape of wisdom, and all hate its low tricks.

Some often repent yet never reform; they resemble a man travelling a dangerous path who frequently starts and stops, but never turns back.

You may glean knowledge by reading, but you must separate the chaff from the wheat by thinking.

Wit malignantly employed is like a crackling fire that with every fresh blaze sends out sparks. Take care that you are not burnt.

He who possesses good books without gaining any profit from them, is like an ass that carries a rich burden and feeds upon thistles.

Friendship has been called the sweetener of life. It is a compound made up of truth and kindness, prudence and piety.

Prayer is called pouring out the heart before God. Is the heart full of sins? pour them out in penitent confessions; full of sorrows? pour them out in humble complaints; full of desires? pour them out in earnest petitions; full of joys? pour them out in rapturous praises.

A holy and useful life does not purchase heaven for a christian, but prepares him for heaven.

He who leaves religion to his last day, reserves only the bran for God, while he gives the fine flour to the Devil.

Speaking without thinking is shooting without taking aim.

While you have a talent, and time to use it, be diligent.

Time is short. Seventy years in the eye of youthful fancy seems a vast and almost boundless space; but in the estimate of sage experience, and in the full view of eternity, they contract to a span and dwindle to a point.

The heart is God's temple. Let no unhallowed fire, no infernal passions, burn in his sanctuary.

Death to the wicked is all loss, to the righteous all gain.