Thought and action are the redeeming features of our lives.

The more you speak of yourself, the more you are likely to lie.

An everlasting tranquility is, in my imagination, the highest possible felicity, because I know of no felicity on earth higher than that which a peaceful mind and contented heart afford.

Those beings only are fit for solitude who are like nobody, and are liked by nobody.

Leisure, the highest happiness upon earth, is seldom enjoyed with perfect satisfaction, except in solitude. Indolence and indifference do not always afford leisure; for true leisure is frequently found in that interval of relaxation which divides a painful duty from an agreeable recreation; a toilsome business from the more agreeable occupations of literature and philosophy.

Liberal of cruelty are those who pamper with promises; promisers destroy while they deceive, and the hope they raise is dearly purchased by the dependence that is sequent to disappointment.

When we meet with better fare than was expected, the disappointment is overlooked even by the unscrupulous. When we meet with worse than was expected, philosophers alone know how to make it better.