All poets pretend to write for immortality, but the whole tribe have no objection to present pay, and present praise. Lord Burleigh is not the only statesman who has thought one hundred pounds too much for a song, though sung by Spenser; although Oliver Goldsmith is the only poet who ever considered himself to have been overpaid.

Those that will not permit their wealth to do any good for others. . . cut themselves off from the truest pleasure here and the highest happiness later.

Money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed. Health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied.

Revenge is fever in our own blood, to be cured only by letting the blood of another; but the remedy too often produces a relapse, which is remorse--a malady far more dreadful than the first disease, because it is incurable.

True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander.

Flattery is often a traffic of mutual meanness, where although both parties intend deception, neither are deceived.

Men are more readily contented with no intellectual light than with a little; and wherever they have been taught to acquire some knowledge in order to please others, they have most generally gone on to acquire more, to please themselves.