We have all our playthings. Happy are they who are contented with those they can obtain; those hours are spent in the wisest manner that can easiest shade the ills of life, and are the least productive of ill consequences.

The use of knowledge in our sex (beside the amusement of solitude) is to moderate the passions and learn to be contented with a small expense, which are the certain effects of a studious life and, it may be, preferable even to that fame which men have engrossed to themselves and will not suffer us to share.

'Tis a sort of duty to be rich, that it may be in one's power to do good, riches being another word for power.

Nature is seldom in the wrong, custom always.

I am afraid we are little better than straws upon the water; we may flatter ourselves that we swim, when the current carries us along.

True knowledge consists in knowing things, not words.

... if it were the fashion to go naked, the face would be hardly observed.