Better it is toward the right conduct of life to consider what will be the end of a thing, than what is the beginning of it: for what promises fair at first may prove ill, and what seems at first a disadvantage, may prove very advantageous.
In every life, no matter how full or empty ones purse, there is tragedy. It is the one promise life always fulfills. Thus, happiness is a gift, and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes, and to add to other peoples store of it.
Joseph is the wearisomest and self-righteous Pharisee who ever ransacked the Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses on his neighbor.
There is something so ludicrous in promises of good or threats of evil a great way off as to render the whole subject with which they are connected easily turned into ridicule.
A clean confession combined with a promise never to commit the sin again, when offered before one who has the right to receive it, is the purest type of repentance.
And be these juggling friends no more believ'd, That palter with us in a double sense; That keep the word of promise to our ear And break it to our hope.