Those who would extirpate evil from the world know little of human nature. As well might punch be palatable without souring as existence agreeable without care.

[A]s a lady adjusts her dress before a mirror, a man adjusts his character by looking at his journal.

The man who stops making new friends eventually will have none.

But what can a man see of a library being one day in it?

Melancholy cannot be clearly proved to others, so it is better to be silent about it.

Why should not the knowledge, the skill, the expertness, the assiduity, and the spirited hazards of trade and commerce, when crowned with success, be entitled to give those flattering distinctions by which mankind are so universally captivated? Such are the specious, but false arguments for a proposition which always will find numerous advocates, in a nation where men are every day starting up from obscurity to wealth. To refute them is needless. The general sense of mankind cries out, with irresistible force, "Un gentilhomme est toujours gentilhomme.

I am so fond of tea that I could write a whole dissertation on its virtues. It comforts and enlivens without the risks attendant on spirituous liquors. Gentle herb! Let the florid grape yield to thee. Thy soft influence is a more safe inspirer of social joy.