prayer must be, in its own nature, absurd and impertinent.

... those, who from an immoderate and false self-love, study to keep their humanity under, always take care, for their own sakes, to represent poverty to themselves, as something ridiculous, mean, and contemptible.

Avarice, with all its black attendants, is confessedly a crime of old age, and seldom arrives at maturity till accompanied with gray hairs.

Virtue is the music of the soul, the harmony of the passions.

How tedious is time, when his wings are loaded with expectation!

Oaths and curses are a proof of a most heroic courage, at least in appearance, which answers the same end.

I am strangely addicted to the writing of long letters, which, I am afraid, tire you; and for the future, I believe, I must be less communicative, in order to be less troublesome.