The Obedience of Children to their Parents is the Basis of all Government, and set forth as the measure of that Obedience which weowe to those whom Providence hath placed over us.

It generally takes its rise either from an ill-will to mankind, a private inclination to make ourselves esteemed, an ostentation of wit, and vanity of being thought in the secrets of the world; or from a desire of gratifying any of these dispositions of mind in those persons with whom we converse.

Why will any man be so impertinently officious as to tell me all prospect of a future state is only fancy and delusion? Is there any merit in being the messenger of ill news. If it is a dream, let me enjoy it, since it makes me both the happier and better man.

Pedantry in learning is like hypocrisy inn religion--a form of knowledge without the power of it.

No man writes a book without meaning something, though he may not have the faculty of writing consequentially and expressing his meaning.

Young men soon give, and soon forget, affronts; old age is slow in both.

One may know a man that never conversed in the world, by his excess of good-breeding.