Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.

Wealth is nothing in itself; it is not useful but when it departs from us.

Bashfulness may sometimes exclude pleasure, but seldom opens any avenue to sorrow or remorse.

People in general do not willingly read if they have anything else to amuse them.

High people, sir, are the best; take a hundred ladies of quality, you'll find them better wives, better mothers, more willing to sacrifice their own pleasures to their children, than a hundred other woman.

Among the many inconsistencies which folly produces or infirmity suffers in the human mind, there has often been observed a manifest and striking contrariety between the life of an author and his writings... Those whom the appearance of virtue or the evidence of genius has tempted to a nearer knowledge of the writer, in whose performances they may be found, have indeed had frequent reason to repent their curiosity.

Adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us.