Silence is less injurious than a weak reply.

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.

Men of great and shining qualities do not always succeed in life, but the fault lies more often in themselves than in others.

Truth can hardly be expected to adapt herself to the crooked policy and wily sinuosities of worldly affairs; for truth, like light, travels only in straight lines.

There is this difference between the two temporal blessings - health and money; money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed; health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied; and this superiority of the latter is still more obvious when we reflec.

Sensibility would be a good portress if she had but one hand; with her right she opens the door to pleasure, but with her left to pain.

It is with antiquity as with ancestry, nations are proud of the one, and individuals of the other; but if they are nothing in themselves, that which is their pride ought to be their humiliation.