My chief study all my life has been to lighten misfortunes and multiply pleasures, as far as human nature can.

You can be pleased with nothing if you are not pleased with yourself.

Satire should, like a polished razor keen, Wound with a touch that's scarcely felt or seen.

A man that is ashamed of passions that are natural and reasonable is generally proud of those that are shameful and silly.

Take back the beauty and wit you bestow upon me; leave me my own mediocrity of agreeableness and genius, but leave me also my sincerity, my constancy, and my plain dealing; 'Tis all I have to recommend me to the esteem either of others or myself.

Let this great maxim be my virtue's guide,- In part she is to blame that has been tried: He comes too near that comes to be denied.

Nobody can deny but religion is a comfort to the distressed, a cordial to the sick, and sometimes a restraint on the wicked.