Many good qualities are not sufficient to balance a single want - the want of money.

Comedians are not usually actors, but imitations of actors.

Indolent people, whatever taste they may have for society, seek eagerly for pleasure, and find nothing. They have an empty head and seared hearts.

Do not think that your Learning and Genius, your Wit or Sprightliness, are welcome everywhere. I was once told that my Company was disagreeable because I appeared so uncommonly happy.

Books afford the surest relief in the most melancholy moments.

Profound meditation in solitude and silence frequently exalts the mind above its natural tone, fires the imagination, produces the most refined and sublime conceptions. The soul then tastes the purest and most refined delight, and almost loses the idea of existence in the intellectual pleasure it receives. The mind on every motion darts through space into eternity; and raised, in its free enjoyment of its powers by its own enthusiasm, strengthens itself in the habitude of contemplating the noblest subjects, and of adopting the most heroic pursuits.

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.