Shining outward qualities, although they may excite first-rate expectations, are not unusually found to be the companions of second-rate abilities.

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.

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

Few things are more agreeable to self-love than revenge, and yet no cause so effectually restrains us from revenge as self-love. And this paradox naturally suggests another; that the strength of the community is not unfrequently built upon the weakness of those individuals that compose it.

Opinions, like showers, are generated in high places, but they invariably descend into lower ones, and ultimately flow down to the people as rain unto the sea.

No two things differ more than hurry and despatch. Hurry is the mark of a weak mind; despatch of a strong one.

We know the effects of many things, but the cause of few; experience, therefore, is a surer guide than imagination, and inquiry than conjecture.