Going to the opera, like getting drunk, is a sin that carries its own punishment with it.

If I wanted to punish an enemy, it should be by fastening on him the trouble of constantly hating somebody.

parents are too apt to mistake inclination for genius.

he who finds he has wasted a shilling may by diligence hope to fetch it up again; but no repentance or industry can ever bring back one wasted hour.

Anger is the common refuge of insignificance. People who feel their character to be slight, hope to give it weight by inflation: but the blown bladder at its fullest distention is still empty.

Small habits well pursued betimes May reach the dignity of crimes.

We are too ready to imagine that we are religious, because we know something of religion. We appropriate to ourselves the pious sentiments we read, and we talk as if the thoughts of other men's heads were really the feelings of our own hearts. But piety has not its seat in the memory, but in the affections, for which however the memory is an excellent purveyor, though a bad substitute.