If you were not reasoned into your beliefs, you cannot be reasoned out of them.

How is it possible to expect that mankind will take advice when they will not so much as take warning.

A pleasant companion is as good as a coach.

Small causes are sufficient to make a man uneasy, when great ones are not in the way: for want of a block he will stumble at a straw.

That was excellently observed’, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.

One principal object of good-breeding is to suit our behaviour to the three several degrees of men, our superiors, our equals, and those below us.

How often do we contradict the right rules of reason in the whole course of our lives! Reason itself is true and just, but the reason of every particular man is weak and wavering, perpetually swayed and turned by his interests, his passions, and his vices.