By forbearing to do what may innocently be done, we may add hourly new vigor to resolution.

There are few so free from vanity as not to dictate to those who will hear their instructions with a visible sense of their own beneficence.

Some people have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully; for I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else.

Without good humour, learning and bravery can only confer that superiority which swells the heart of the lion in the desert, where he roars without reply, and ravages without resistance. Without good humour virtue may awe by its dignity and amaze by its brightness, but must always be viewed at a distance, and will scarcely gain a friend or attract an imitator.

It is the just doom of laziness and gluttony to be inactive without ease and drowsy without tranquility.

Poetry cannot be translation

No man can perform so little as not to have reason to congratulate himself on his merits, when he beholds the multitude that live in total idleness, and have never yet endeavoured to be useful.