As many as are the difficulties which Virtue has to encounter in this world, her force is yet superior.

We may have an excellent ear for music, without being able to perform in any kind; we may judge well of poetry, without being poets, or possessing the least of a poetic vein; but we can have no tolerable notion of goodness without being tolerably good.

They who are great talkers in company have never been any talkers by themselves, nor used to private discussions of our home regimen.

When men are easy in themselves, they let others remain so.

Wit is its own remedy. Liberty and commerce bring it to its true standard. The only danger is the laying an embargo. The same thing happens here as in the case of trade: impositions and restrictions reduce it to a low ebb; nothing is so advantageous to it as a free port.

It is the hardest thing in the world to be a good thinker without being a good self examiner.

Never did any soul do good but it came readier to do the same again, with more enjoyment. Never was love or gratitude or bounty practiced but with increasing joy, which made the practicer still more in love with the fair act.