With books, as with companions, it is of more consequence to know which to avoid, than which to choose; for good books are as scarce as good companions...

Justice to my readers compels me to admit that I write because I have nothing to do; justice to myself induces me to add that I will cease to write the moment I have nothing to say.

As the grand discordant harmony of the celestial bodies may be explained by the simple principles of gravity and impulse, so also in that more wonderful and complicated microcosm, the heart of man, all the phenomena of morals are perhaps resolvable into one single principle, the pursuit of apparent good; for although customs universally vary, yet man in all climates and countries is essentially the same.

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

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.

Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness when bequeathed by those who, even alive, would part with nothing.

The French have a saying that whatever excellence a man may exhibit in a public station he is very apt to be ridiculous in a private one.