Self-love is a busy prompter.

You cannot give me an instance of any man who is permitted to lay out his own time contriving not to have tedious hours.

To dread no eye and to suspect no tongue is the great prerogative of innocence--an exemption granted only to invariable virtue.

A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.

I would consent to have a limb amputated to recover my spirits

We suffer equal pain from the pertinacious adhesion of unwelcome images, as from the evanescence of those which are pleasing and useful.

The business of the biographer is often to pass slightly over those performances and incidents which produce vulgar greatness, to lead the thoughts into domestic privacies, and display the minute details of daily life, were exterior appendages are cast aside, and men excel each other only by prudence and virtue.