Little would be wanting to the happiness of life, if every man could conform to the right as soon as he was shown it.

Many need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled.

It is not often that any man can have so much knowledge of another, as is necessary to make instruction useful.

Piety practiced in solitude, like the flower that blooms in the desert, may give its fragrance to the winds of heaven, and delight those unbodied spirits that survey the works of God and the actions of men; but it bestows no assistance upon earthly beings, and however free from taints of impurity, yet wants the sacred splendor of beneficence.

There is no being so poor and so contemptible, who does not think there is somebody still poorer, and still more contemptible.

There are innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can in this state receive no answer: Why do you and I exist? Why was this world created? Since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner?

Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen.