The uncertainty of death is, in effect, the great support of the whole system of life.

It ought to be the first endeavour of a writer to distinguish nature from custom; or that which is established because it is right, from that which is right only because it is established; that he may neither violate essential principles by a desire of novelty, nor debar himself from the attainment of beauties within his view, by a needless fear of breaking rules which no literary dictator had authority to enact.

Falsehoods of convenience or vanity, falsehoods from which no evil immediately visible ensues, except the general degradation of human testimony, are very lightly uttered, and once uttered are sullenly supported.

It is common to overlook what is near by keeping the eye fixed on something remote.

The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

Few men survey themselves with so much severity as not to admit prejudices in their own favor.

Since life itself is uncertain, nothing which has life for its basis can boast much stability.