Gaming is a vice the more dangerous as it is deceitful; and, contrary to every other species of luxury, flatters its votaries with the hopes of increasing their wealth; so that avarice itself is so far from securing us against its temptations that it often betrays the more thoughtless and giddy part of mankind into them.

Conscience is a judge in every man's breast, which none can cheat or corrupt, and perhaps the only incorrupt thing about him; yet, inflexible and honest as this judge is (however polluted the bench on which he sits), no man can, in my opinion, enjoy any applause which is not there adjudged to be his due.

There are those who never reason on what they should do, but what they have done; as if Reason had her eyes behind, and could only see backwards.

When widows exclaim loudly against second marriages, I would always lay a wager than the man, If not the wedding day, is absolutely fixed on.

What was said by the Latin poet of labor--that it conquers all things--is much more true when applied to impudence.

Though we may sometimes unintentionally bestow our beneficence on the unworthy, it does not take from the merit of the act. For charity doth not adopt the vices of its objects.

Nothing more aggravates ill success than the near approach of good.