Where the law ends tyranny begins.

In the forming of female friendships beauty seldom recommends one woman to another.

Some general officers should pay a stricter regard to truth than to call the depopulating other countries the service of their own.

Wisdom is the talent of buying virtuous pleasures at the cheapest rate.

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.

Prudence is a duty which we owe ourselves, and if we will be so much our own enemies as to neglect it, we are not to wonder if the world is deficient in discharging their duty to us; for when a man lays the foundation of his own ruin, others too often are apt to build upon it.

The exceptions of the scrupulous put one in mind of some general pardons where everything is forgiven except crimes.