A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected.

People have now a-days got a strange opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do as much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken.

To write is, indeed, no unpleasing employment, when one sentiment readily produces another, and both ideas and expressions present themselves at the first summons; but such happiness, the greatest genius does not always obtain; and common writers know it only to such a degree, as to credit its possibility. Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.

If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.

Rain is good for vegetables, and for the animals who eat those vegetables, and for the animals who eat those animals.

Every man that has felt pain knows how little all other comforts can gladden him to whom health is denied. Yet who is there does not sometimes hazard it for the enjoyment of an hour?

There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern.