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.

In the sallies of badinage a polite fool shines; but in gravity he is as awkward as an elephant disporting.

There are few mortals so insensible that their affections cannot he gained by mildness, their confidence by sincerity, their hatred by scorn or neglect

The love of solitude, when cultivated in the morn of life, elevates the mind to a noble independence, but to acquire the advantages which solitude is capable of affording, the mind must not be impelled to it by melancholy and discontent, but by a real distaste to the idle pleasures of the world, a rational contempt for the deceitful joys of life, and just apprehensions of being corrupted and seduced by its insinuating and destructive gayeties.

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.

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

Troops of furies march in the drunkard's triumph.