..to write and to live are very different. Many who praise virtue, do no more than praise it.

Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion.

The prospect of penury in age is so gloomy and terrifying that every man who looks before him must resolve to avoid it; and it must be avoided generally by the science of sparing.

The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it.

The truly strong and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.

No one is much pleased with a companion who does not increase, in some respect, their fondness for themselves.

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.