If truth can be found in any sublunary science, numbers will produce it, for to that at last almost all other sciences refer for confirmation.

[Samuel] Johnson's conversation was by much too strong for a person accustomed to obsequiousness and flattery; it was mustard in a young child's mouth!

... one should know the value of Life better than to pout any part of it away.

Friendship is far more delicate than love. Quarrels and fretful complaints are attractive in the last, offensive in the first. And the very things which heap fewel on the fire of ardent passion, choke and extinguish sober and true regard. On the other hand, time, which is sure to destroy that love of which half certainly depends on desire, is as sure to increase a friendship founded on talents, warm with esteem, and ambitious of success for the object of it.

I am perpetually bringing or losing babies, both very dreadful operations to me, and which tear mind and body both in pieces very cruelly.

The pleasures of intimacy in friendship depend far more on external circumstances than people of a sentimental turn of mind are willing to concede; and when constant companionship ceases to suit the convenience of both parties, the chances are that it will be dropped on the first favourable opportunity.

We look on those approaching the banks of a river all must cross, with ten times the interest they excited when dancing in the meadow.