Wit is the fetching of congruity out of incongruity.

There is nothing in which men more deceive themselves than in what they call zeal.

Hope calculates its scenes for a long and durable life; presses forward to imaginary points of bliss; and grasps at impossibilities; and consequently very often ensnares men into beggary, ruin and dishonor.

A misery is not to be measure from the nature of the evil but from the temper of the sufferer.

Dependence is a perpetual call upon humanity, and a greater incitement to tenderness and pity than any other motive whatever.

I consider an human soul without education like marble in the quarry, which shows none of its inherent beauties till the skill of the polisher fetches out the colours, makes the surface shine, and discovers every ornamental cloud, spot and vein that runs through the body of it.

Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity.