A good character when established should not be rested in as an end, but only employed as a means of doing still further good.

Affliction is a school of virtue; it corrects levity, and interrupts the confidence of sinning.

What we employ in charitable uses during our lives is given away from ourselves; what we bequeath at our death is given from others only, as our nearest relations.

The things of another world being distant, operate but faintly upon us: to remedy this inconvenience, we must frequently revolve their certainty and importance.

He who performs his duty in a station of great power must needs incur the utter enmity of many, and the high displeasure of more.

It is little the sign of a wise or good man, to suffer temperance to be transgressed in order to purchase the repute of a generous entertainer.

Hospitality sometimes degenerates into profuseness, and ends in madness and folly.