Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness when bequeathed by those who, when alive, would part with nothing.

When it comes to divide an estate, the politest men quarrel.

They that marry ancient people, merely in expectation to bury them, hang themselves in hope that one will come and cut the halter.

One of my father's most precious legacies to me was spiritual. I learned from him the value of courage and the strength of will.

The art of will-making chiefly consists in baffling the importunity of expectation.

There is nothing earthly that lasts so well, on the whole, as money. A man's learning dies with him; even his virtues fade out of remembrance; but the dividends on the stocks he bequeaths to his children live and keep his memory green.

A son can bear with composure the death of his father, but the loss of his inheritance might drive him to despair.