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

People wish their enemies dead - but I do not; I say give them the gout, give them the stone!

Prudent people are very happy; 'tis an exceeding fine thing, that's certain, but I was born without it, and shall retain to my day of Death the Humour of saying what I think.

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.

There is no remedy so easy as books, which if they do not give cheerfulness, at least restore quiet to the most troubled mind.

Making verses is almost as common as taking snuff, and God can tell what miserable stuff people carry about in their pockets, and offer to all their acquaintances, and you know one cannot refuse reading and taking a pinch.

one would suffer a great deal to be happy.