If we hope for what we are not likely to possess, we act and think in vain, and make life a greater dream and shadow than it really is.

He only is a great man who can neglect the applause of the multitude and enjoy himself independent of its favor.

One would wonder to hear skeptical men disputing for the reason of animals, and telling us it is only our pride and prejudices that will not allow them the use of that faculty. Reason shows itself in all occurrences of life; whereas the brute makes no discovery of such a talent, but in what immediately regards his own preservation, or the continuance of his species. Animals in their generation are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass. Take a brute out of his instinct, and you find him wholly deprived of understanding.

A person may be qualified to do greater good to mankind and become more beneficial to the world, by morality without faith than by faith without morality.

Beauty commonly produces love, but cleanliness preserves it. Age itself is not unamiable while it is preserved clean and unsullied; like a piece of metal constantly kept smooth and bright, we look on it with more pleasure than on a new vessel cankered with rust.

What an absurd thing it is to pass over all the valuable parts of a man, and fix our attention on his infirmities.

A reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure until he knows whether the writer of it be a black man or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor.