It is sufficiently humiliating to our nature to reflect that our knowledge is but as she rivulet, our ignorance as the sea. On points of the highest interest, the moment we quit the light of revelation we shall find that Platonism itself is intimately connected with Pyrrhonism, and the deepest inquiry with the darkest doubt.

We often regret we did not do otherwise, when that very otherwise would, in all probability, have done for us.

No man can promise himself even fifty years of life, but any man may, if he please, live in the proportion of fifty years in forty-let him rise early, that he may have the day before him, and let him make the most of the day, by determining to expend it on two sorts of acquaintance only-those by whom something may be got, and those from whom something maybe learned.

Most of our misfortunes are more supportable than the comments of our friends upon them.

A wise minister would rather preserve peace than gain a victory, because he knows that even the most successful war leaves nations generally more poor, always more profligate, than it found them.

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

The man of pleasure, by a vain attempt to be more happy than any man can be, is often more miserable than most men are.