Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity.

The great number of the Jews furnishes us with a sufficient cloud of witnesses that attest the truth of the Bible.

Most of the trades, professions, and ways of living among mankind, take their original either from the love of the pleasure, or the fear of want. The former, when it becomes too violent, degenerates into luxury, and the latter into avarice.

Advertisements are of great use to the vulgar. First of all, as they are instruments of ambition. A man that is by no means big enough for the Gazette, may easily creep into the advertisements; by which means we often see an apothecary in the same paper of news with a plenipotentiary, or a running footman with an ambassador.

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.

I think I may define taste to be that faculty of the soul which discerns the beauties of an author with pleasure, and the imperfections with dislike.

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.