The greatest sweetener of human life is friendship.

No man writes a book without meaning something, though he may not have the faculty of writing consequentially and expressing his meaning.

Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honoris a private station.

Good-breeding shows itself most where to an ordinary eye it appears the least.

One would wonder to hear skeptical men disputing for the reason of animals, and telling us it is only our pride and prejudices that will not allow them the use of that faculty. 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. Animals in their generation are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass. Take a brute out of his instinct, and you find him wholly deprived of understanding.

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

The English Writers of Tragedy are possessed with a Notion, that when they represent a virtuous or innocent Person in Distress, they ought not to leave him till they have delivered him out of his Troubles, or made him triumph over his Enemies.