In Shakespeare's plays, the mourner hastening to bury his friend is all the time colliding with the reveller hastening to his wine.

Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; you will find it a calamity.

The fiction of happiness is propagated by every tongue and confirmed by every look till at last all profess the joy which they do not feel and consent to yield to the general delusion.

In the motive lies the good or ill.

The public pleasures of far the greater part of mankind are counterfeit.

Every government is perpetually degenerating towards corruption, from which it must be rescued at certain periods by the resuscitation of its first principles, and the re-establishment of its original constitution.

When a friend is carried to his grave, we at once find excuses for every weakness, and palliation of every fault. We recollect a thousand endearments, which before glided off our minds without impression, a thousand favors unrepaid, a thousand duties unperformed; and wish, vainly wish, for his return, not so much that we may receive as that we may bestow happiness, and recompense that kindness which before we never understood.