Physical ills are the taxes laid upon this wretched life; some are taxed higher, and some lower, but all pay something.

Pleasure is the rock which most young people split upon; they launch out with crowded sails in quest of it, but without a compassto direct their course, or reason sufficient to steer the vessel; for want of which, pain and shame, instead of pleasure, are the returns of their voyage.

It is hard to say which is the greatest fool: he who tells the whole truth, or he who tells no truth at all. Character is as necessary in business as in trade. No man can deceive often in either.

A certain degree of fear produces the same effects as rashness.

There is not a more prudent maxim, than to live with one's enemies as if they may one day become one's friends; as it commonly happens, sooner or later, in the vicissitudes of political affairs.

The rich are always advising the poor, but the poor seldom return the compliment.

A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things but cannot receive great ones.