A corrupt practice may be abolished, but a soiled imagination is not easily cleansed.

No adulation; 'tis the death of virtue; Who flatters, is of all mankind the lowest Save he who courts the flattery.

Of two evils, had not an author better be tedious than superficial! From an overflowing vessel you may gather more, indeed, than you want, but from an empty one you can gather nothing.

Indeed, I have, alas! outlived almost every one of my contemporaries. One pays dear for living long.

Long habit so reconciles us to almost any thing, that the grossest improprieties cease to strike us when they once make a part of the common course of action.

Affliction is the school in which great virtues are acquired, in which great characters are formed.

All reformations seem formidable before they are attempted.