Our delight in any particular study, art, or science rises and improves in proportion to the application which we bestow upon it. Thus, what was at first an exercise becomes at length an entertainment.

It is wonderful to see persons of sense passing away a dozen hours together in shuffling and dividing a pack of cards.

A man that has a taste of music, painting, or architecture, is like one that has another sense, when compared with such as have no relish of those arts

A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart; his next, to escape the censures of the world: if the last interferes with the former, it ought to be entirely neglected; but otherwise there cannot be a greater satisfaction to an honest mind, than to see those approbations which it gives itself seconded by the applauses of the public.

The most skillful flattery is to let a person talk on, and be a listener.

No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.

Admiration is a very short-lived passion, that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object.