There is noting truly valuable which can be purchased without pains and labor. The gods have set a price upon every real and noble pleasure.

An evil intention perverts the best actions, and makes them sins.

Fables take off from the severity of instruction, and enforce it at the same time that they conceal it.

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.

The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight.

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

There is a kind of grandeur and respect which the meanest and most insignificant part of mankind endeavor to procure in the little circle of their friends and acquaintance. The poorest mechanic, nay, the man who lives upon common alms, gets him his set of admirers, and delights in that superiority which he enjoys over those who are in some respects beneath him. This ambition, which is natural to the soul of man, might, methinks, receive a very happy turn; and, if it were rightly directed, contribute as much to a person's advantage, as it generally does to his uneasiness and disquiet.