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.

As addictions go, reading is among the cleanest, easiest to feed, happiest.

What I spent I lost; what I possessed is left to others; what I gave away remains with me.

We see no where the pernicious effects of luxury on a republic more than in that of the ancient Romans, who immediately found itself poor as soon as this vice got footing among them, though they were possessed of all the riches in the world.

There is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady's head-dress.

A man who has any relish for fine writing either discovers new beauties or receives stronger impressions from the masterly strokes of a great author every time he peruses him; besides that he naturally wears himself into the same manner of speaking and thinking.

Riches are apt to betray a man into arrogance.