Were a man's sorrows and disquietudes summed up at the end of his life, it would generally be found that he had suffered more from the apprehension of such evils as never happened to him than from those evils which had really befallen him.

With regard to donations always expect the most from prudent people, who keep their own accounts.

The most violent appetites in all creatures are lust and hunger; the first is a perpetual call upon them to propagate their kind, the latter to preserve themselves.

Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind

Poverty palls the most generous spirits; it cows industry, and casts resolution itself into despair.

If gratitude, when exerted towards another, naturally produces a very pleasing sensation in the mind of a grateful man, it exalts the soul into rapture when it is employed on this great object of gratitude to the beneficent Being who has given us everything we already possess, and from whom we expect everything we yet hope for.

I consider time as an in immense ocean, in which many noble authors are entirely swallowed up.