It is pleasant to see a notorious profligate seized with a concern for religion, and converting his spleen into zeal.

We are apt to rely upon future prospects, and become really expensive while we are only rich in possibility. We live up to our expectations, not to our possessions, and make a figure proportionable to what we may be, not what we are.

Man is the merriest species of the creation; all above or below him are serious.

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.

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

All well-regulated families set apart an hour every morning for tea and bread and butter

The productions of a great genius, with many lapses and inadvertences, are infinitely preferable to the works of an inferior kind of author which are scrupulously exact, and conformable to all the rules of correct writing.