The sports of children satisfy the child.

Philosophy ... should not pretend to increase our present stock, but make us economists of what we are possessed of.

A man he was to all the country dear, And passing rich with forty pounds a year.

A man who leaves home to mend himself and others is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is a vagabond.

The company of fools may first make us smile, but in the end we always feel melancholy.

Mortifications are often more painful than real calamities.

Is it that Nature, attentive to the preservation of mankind, increases our wishes to live, while she lessens our enjoyments, and as she robs the senses of every pleasure, equips imag-ination in the spoil?