Whether a pretty woman grants or withholds her favors, she always likes to be asked for them.

The praise of an ignorant man is only good-will, and you should receive his kindness as he is a good neighbor in society, and not as a good judge of your actions in point of fame and reputation.

It is an impertinent and unreasonable fault in conversation for one man to take up all the discourse.

Pleasure, when it is a man's chief purpose, disappoints itself; and the constant application to it palls the faculty of enjoying it.

Praise from an enemy is the most pleasing of all commendations.

I love to consider an Infidel, whether distinguished by the title of deist, atheist, or free-thinker, by three different lights, in his solitude, his afflictions, and his last moments.... [In these situations such people show themselves] in solitude, incapable or rapture or elevation, ... in distress, [with] a halter or a pistol the only refuge [they] can fly to, ... [and liable to conversion] at the approach of death.

It is a very melancholy reflection that men are usually so weak that it is absolutely necessary for them to know sorrow and pain to be in their right senses.