The commodiousness of money is indeed great; but there are some advantages which money cannot buy, and which therefore no wise man will by the love of money be tempted to forego.

Paradise Lost is a book that, once put down, is very hard to pick up again.

Friends are often chosen for similitude of manners, and therefore each palliates the other's failings because they are his own.

But, perhaps, the flatterer is not often detected; for an honest mind is not apt to suspect, and no one exerts the power of discernment with much vigour when selflove favors the deceit.

He that writes may be considered as a kind of general challenger, whom every one has a right to attack; since he quits the common rank of life, steps forward beyond the lists, and offers his merit to the public judgement. To commence author is to claim praise, and no man can justly aspire to honour, but at the hazard of disgrace.

My diseases are an asthma and a dropsy and, what is less curable, seventy-five.

Hope is itself a species of happiness.