A friend exaggerates a man's virtues; an enemy inflames his crimes.

Without constancy there is neither love, friendship, nor virtue in the world.

The Mind that lies fallow but a single Day, sprouts up in Follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous Culture.

Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.

The jealous man's disease is of so malignant a nature, that it converts all it takes into its own nourishment.

A man improves more by reading the story of a person eminent for prudence and virtue, than by the finest rules and precepts of morality.

Cunning has only private selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make them succeed. Discretion has large and extended views, and, like a well-formed eye, commands a whole horizon; cunning is a kind of shortsightedness, that discovers the minutest objects which are near at hand, but is not able to discern things at a distance.