If there be a pleasure on earth which angels cannot enjoy, and which they might almost envy man the possession of, it is the power of relieving distress--if there be a pain which devils might pity man for enduring, it is the death-bed reflection that we have possessed the power of doing good, but that we have abused and perverted it to purposes of ill.

It is far more easy to acquire a fortune like a knave, than to expend it, like a gentleman.

Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; they made no such demand upon those who wrote them.

The martyrs to vice far exceed the martyrs to virtue, both in endurance and in number.

We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine, but if defer tasting them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.

In great cities men are more callous both to the happiness and the misery of others, than in the country; for they are constantly in the habit of seeing both extremes.

In science, reason is the guide; in poetry, taste. The object of the one is truth, which is uniform and indivisible; the object of the other is beauty, which is multiform and varied.