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.

There is nothing that more betrays a base ungenerous spirit than the giving of secret stabs to a man's reputation. Lampoons and satires that are written with wit and spirit are like poisoned darts, which not only inflict a wound, but make it incurable.

I never knew an early-rising, hard-working, prudent man, careful of his earnings and strictly honest, who complained of hard luck. A good character, good habits and iron industry are impregnable to the assaults of all ill-luck that fools ever dreamed.

Among those evils which befall us, there are many which have been more painful to us in the prospect than by their actual pressure.

I have often thought, says Sir Roger, it happens very well that Christmas should fall out in the middle of Winter.

But silence never shows itself to so great an advantage, as when it is made the reply to calumny and defamation, provided that we give no just occasion for them.

Nothing is more amiable than true modesty, and nothing more contemptible than the false. The one guards virtue, the other betrays it.