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.

The very essence of gravity was design, and, consequently, deceit; it was a taught trick to gain credit of the world for more sense end knowledge than a man was worth; and that with all its pretensions it was no better, but often worse, than what a French wit had long ago defined it--a mysterious carriage of the body to cover the defects of the mind.

Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel into another?

Any one may do a casual act of good-nature; but a continuation of them shows it a part of the temperament.

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

Whatever stress some may lay upon it, a death-bed repentance is but a weak and slender plank to trust our all on.

In solitude the mind gains strength and learns to lean upon itself.