Very few live by choice. Every man is placed in his present condition by causes which acted without his foresight, and with which he did not always willingly cooperate; and therefore you will rarely meet one who does not think the lot of his neighbor better than his own.

You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense of their labor, than when you give money merely in charity.

A man may be very sincere in good principles, without having good practice.

The insolence of wealth will creep out.

We consider ourselves as defective in memory, either because we remember less than we desire, or less than we suppose others to remember.

You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.

Sir, sorrow is inherent in humanity. As you cannot judge two and two to be either five, or three, but certainly four, so, when comparing a worse present state with a better which is past, you cannot but feel sorrow. It is not cured by reason, but by the incursion of present objects, which bear out the past.