In Friendship we only see those faults which may be prejudicial to our friends. In love we see no faults but those by which we suffer ourselves.

Extremes are vicious, and proceed from men; compensation is just, and proceeds from God.

There are some souls so base and filthy that they love gain and interest as noble souls love fame and virtue, knowing one pleasure only, that of making money or of not losing it; anxious and avid for their ten per cent; entirely preoccupied with what is owed them; forever concerned about the depreciation or discredit of money; buried, and as it were engulfed, amid contracts, title-deeds and parchments. Such people are neither parents, friends, citizens or Christians, nor, perhaps, even men; they merely have money.

When we have run through all forms of government, without partiality to that we were born under, we are at a loss with which to side; they are all a compound of good and evil. It is therefore most reasonable and safe to value that of our own country above all others, and to submit to it.

It is virtue which should determine us in the choice of our friends, without inquiring into their good or evil fortune.

A blockhead cannot come in, nor go away, nor sit, nor rise, nor stand, like a man of sense.

The mind, like all other things, will become impaired, the sciences are its food,--they nourish, but at the same time they consume it.