To despise riches, may, indeed, be philosophic, but to dispense them worthily, must surely be more beneficial to mankind.

How little has situation to do with happiness.

You have sensible women here [in England] but then, they are very devils--censorious, uncharitable, sarcastic--the women in Scotland have twice--thrice their freedom, with all their virtue--and are very conversable and agreeable--their educations are more finished.

Never shall I recollect the occasion he gave me of displeasure, without feeling it renewed.

This perpetual round of constrained civilities to persons quite indifferent to us, is the most provoking and tiresome thing in theworld, but it is unavoidable in a country town, where everybody is known.... 'Tis a most shocking and unworthy way of spending our precious irrecoverable time, to those who know not its value.

I love and honour [Paulus Aemilius, in Plutarch's Lives], for his fondness for his children, which instead of blushing at, he avows and glories in: and that at an age, when almost all the heros and great men thought that to make their children and family a secondary concern, was the first proof of their superiority and greatness of soul.

When young people are too rigidly sequestered from [the world], their lively and romantic imaginations paint it to them as a paradise of which they have been beguiled; but when they are shown it properly, and in due time, they see it such as it really is, equally shared by pain and pleasure, hope and disappointment.