I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically.

A companion loves some agreeable qualities which a man may possess, but a friend loves the man himself.

I am sensible that my keenness of temper, and a vanity to be distinguished for the day, make me too often splash in life.... I amresolved to restrain myself and attend more to decorum.

It is wonderful that five thousand years have now elapsed since the creation of the world, and still it is undecided whether or not there has ever been an instance of the spirit of any person appearing after death. All argument is against it; but all belief is for it.

Wine makes a man better pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others. Sometimes it does. But the danger is, that while a man grows better pleased with himself, he may be growing less pleasing to others. Wine gives a man nothing. It neither gives him knowledge nor wit; it only animates a man, and enables him to bring out what a dread of the company has presented.

In every place, where there is any thing worthy of observation, there should be a short printed directory for strangers.

My mind was, as it were, strongly impregnated with the Johnsonian ether.