Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy they are, who already possess it.

In friendship as well as love, ignorance very often contributes more to our happiness than knowledge.

He that fancies such a sufficiency in himself that he can live without all the world is greatly mistaken; but he that imagines himself so necessary that other people cannot live without him is a great deal more mistaken.

However greatly we distrust the sincerity of those we converse with, yet still we think they tell more truth to us than to anyone else.

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

Jealousy is in a manner just and reasonable, as it tends to preserve a good which belongs, or which we believe belongs to us, on the other hand envy is a fury which cannot endure the happiness of others.

The most subtle of our acts is to simulate blindness for snares that we know are set for us.