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.

When we are old, our friends find it difficult to please us, and are less concerned whether we be pleased or not.

Patience alleviates, as impatience augments, pain; thus persons of strong will suffer less than those who give way to irritation.

Principally I hate and detest that animal called man; although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth.

Abstracts, abridgments, summaries, etc., have the same use with burning-glasses,--to collect the diffused light rays of wit and learning in authors, and make them point with warmth and quickness upon the reader's imagination.

Whatever the poets pretend, it is plain they give immortality to none but themselves; it is Homer and Virgil we reverence and admire, not Achilles or Aeneas. With historians it is quite the contrary; our thoughts are taken up with the actions, persons, and events we read, and we little regard the authors.

It is remarkable with what Christian fortitude and resignation we can bear the suffering of other folks.