Positiveness is a most absurd foible. If you are in the right, it lessens your triumph; if in the wrong, it adds shame to your defeat.

I begin with writing the first sentence—and trusting to Almighty God for the second.

There are worse occupations in this world than feeling a woman's pulse.

There is a plain distinction to be made betwixt pleasure and happiness. For tho' there can be no happiness without pleasure--yet the converse of the proposition will not hold true.--We are so made, that from the common gratifications of our appetites, and the impressions of a thousand objects, we snatch the one, like a transient gleam, without being suffered to taste the other.

It is sweet to feel by what fine spun threads our affections are drawn together.

We lose the right of complaining sometimes, by denying something, but this often triples its force.

Writing, when properly managed, (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation.