It is always safe to learn, even from our enemies, seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends. - Charles Caleb Colton

With books, as with companions, it is of more consequence to know which to avoid, than which to choose; for good books are as scarce as good companions.

Ambition is to the mind, what the cap is to the falcon; it blinds us first, and then compels us to tower, by reason of our blindness. But alas, when we are at the summit of a vain ambition, we are also at the depth of real misery. We are placed where time cannot improve, but must impair us; where chance and change cannot befriend, but may betray us; in short, by attaining all we wish, and gaining all we want, we have only reached a pinnacle, where we have nothing to hope, but every thing to fear.

No man can purchase his virtue too dear, for it is the only thing whose value must ever increase with the price it has cost us.