Boredom ... causes us to neglect more duties than does interest.

One kind of happiness is to know exactly at what point to be miserable.

Most people know no other way of judging men's worth but by the vogue they are in, or the fortunes they have met with.

No man deserves to be praised for his goodness, who has it not in his power to be wicked. Goodness without that power is generally nothing more than sloth, or an impotence of will.

It is not in the power of even the most crafty dissimulation to conceal love long, where it really is, nor to counterfeit it long where it is not.

Being a blockhead is sometimes the best security against being cheated by a man of wit.

Envy is more irreconcilable than hatred.