The chief ingredients in the composition of those qualities that gain esteem and praise, are good nature, truth, good sense, and good breeding.

The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight.

Plenty of people wish to become devout, but no one wishes to be humble.

There is no kind of false wit which has been so recommended by the practice of all ages, as that which consists in a jingle of words, and is comprehended under the general name of punning.

Peaceable times are the best to live in, though not so proper to furnish materials for a writer.

It is the privilege of posterity to set matters right between those antagonists who, by their rivalry for greatness, divided a whole age.

Nothing is more amiable than true modesty, and nothing more contemptible than the false. The one guards virtue, the other betrays it.