Do not conceive that fine Clothes make fine Men, any more than fine feathers make fine Birds-A plain genteel dress is more admired and obtains more credit than lace & embroidery in the Eyes of the judicious and sensible.

Always be more than you appear and never appear to be more than you are.

An example I often use to illustrate the reality of vanity, is this: look at the peacock; it's beautiful if you look at it from the front. But if you look at it from behind, you discover the truth... Whoever gives in to such self-absorbed vanity has huge misery hiding inside them.

He who look at a woman who is not his wife as a mother; wealth that is not his as dust and all the men as himself... is a happy man. He, who sees all these things under a different light, is a blind.

I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.

The value of liberty was thus enhanced in our estimation by the difficulty of its attainment, and the worth of characters appreciated by the trial of adversity.