The joy of life is variety.

Contempt is a kind of gangrene which, if it seizes one part of a character, corrupts all the rest by degrees.

It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.

Piety is the only proper and adequate relief of decaying man. He that grows old without religions hopes, as he declines into imbecility, and feels pains and sorrows incessantly crowding upon him, falls into a gulf of bottomless misery, in which every reflection must plunge him deeper and deeper.

If an author be supposed to involve his thoughts in voluntary obscurity, and to obstruct, by unnecessary difficulties, a mind eager in the pursuit of truth; if he writes not to make others learned, but to boast the learning which he possesses himself, and wishes to be admired rather than understood, he counteracts the first end of writing, and justly suffers the utmost severity of censure, or the more afflicting severity of neglect.

A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity.

I am willing to love all of mankind, except an American.