Gratitude is a duty none can be excused from, because it is always at our own disposal.

Despair is like forward children, who, when you take away one of their playthings, throw the rest into the fire for madness. It grows angry with itself, turns its own executioner, and revenges its misfortunes on its own head.

Gratitude is a virtue disposing the mind to an inward sense and an outward acknowledgment of a benefit received, together with a readiness to return the same, or the like, as occasions of the doer of it shall require, and the abilities of the receiver extend to. He who receives a good turn, should never forget it: he who does one, should never remember it.

All religions are pieced together out of elements which seem so at odds with reason that any intelligence laughs at them.

He that boasts of his ancestors confesses that he has no virtue of his own. No person ever lived for our honor; nor ought that to be reputed ours, which was long before we had a being; for what advantage can it be to a blind man to know that his parents had good eyes? Does he see one whit the better?

Wounds and hardships provoke our courage, and when our fortunes are at the lowest, our wits and minds are commonly at the best.

The advice of friends must be received with a judicious reserve; we must not give ourselves up to it and follow it blindly, whether right or wrong.