Praise from a friend, or censure from a foe, Are lost on hearers that our merits know.

There should be, methinks, as little merit in loving a woman for her beauty as in loving a man for his prosperity; both being equally subject to change.

Some people are commended for a giddy kind of good-humor, which is as much a virtue as drunkenness.

Chiefs who no more in bloody fights engage, But wise through time, and narrative with age, In summer-days like grasshoppers rejoice - A bloodless race, that send a feeble voice.

That, chang'd thro' all and yet in all the same, Great in the Earth as in th' Ætherial frame, Warms in the Sun, refreshes in the Breeze, Glows in the Stars, and blossoms in the Trees... Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part... Submit - in this, or any other Sphere, Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear. All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee; All Chance, Direction which thou canst not see; All Discord, Harmony not understood... All partial Evil, universal Good.

Wise wretch! with pleasures too refined to please, With too much spirit to be e'er at ease, With too much quickness ever to be taught, With too much thinking to have common thought: You purchase pain with all that joy can give, And die of nothing but a rage to live.

The same ambition can destroy or save, and make a patriot as it makes a knave.