Absence in love is like water upon fire; a little quickens, but much extinguishes it.

Names govern the world.

parents are too apt to mistake inclination for genius.

People talk as if the act of death made a complete change in the nature, as well as in the condition of man. Death is the vehicle to another state of being, but possesses no power to qualify us for that state. In conveying us to a new world it does not give us a new heart.

There is scarcely any fault in another which offends us more than vanity, though perhaps there is none that really injures us so little.

Pleasure is by much the most laborious trade I know, especially for those who have not a vocation to it.

Wisdom views with an indifferent eye all finite joys, all blessings born to die.