Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps as few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold, which the owner knows not of.
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If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning, etc., beginning from his youth, and so go on to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last!
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The reason why so few marriages are happy is because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.
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"He who does not provide for his own house," St. Paul says, "is worse than an infidel." And I think, he who provides only for his own house is just equal with an infidel.
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An idle reason lessens the value of the good ones you gave before.
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