Genius now and then produces a lucky trifle. We still read the Dove of Anacreon, and Sparrow of Catullus; and a writer naturally pleases himself with a performance which owes nothing to the subject.

Pointed axioms and acute replies fly loose about the world, and are assigned successively to those whom it may be the fashion to celebrate.

The gratification which affluence of wealth, extent of power, and eminence of reputation confer, must be always, by their own nature, confined to a very small number; and the life of the greater part of mankind must be lost in empty wishes and painful comparisons, were not the balm of philosophy shed upon us, and our discontent at the appearances of unequal distribution soothed and appeased.

When a man feel the reprehension of a friend seconded by his own heart, he is easily heated into resentment.

Nothing odd will do long. Tristram Shandy did not last.

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

He who would govern his actions by the laws of virtue must regulate his thoughts by those of reason.