There is some shadow of delight and delicacy which smiles upon and flatters us even in the very lap of melancholy.

Men are tormented by the opinions they have of things, and not the things themselves.

There is not one of us that would not be worse than kings, if so continually corrupted as they are with a sort of vermin called flatterers.

If to take up books were to take them in, and if to see them were to consider them, and to run through them were to grasp them, I should be wrong to make myself out quite as ignorant as I say I am.

Aesop, that great man, saw his master making water as he walked. "What!" he said, "Must we void ourselves as we run?" Use our timeas best we may, yet a great part of it will still be idly and ill spent.

A man must learn to endure patiently what he cannot avoid conveniently.

There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.