Pension: An allowance made to anyone without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country.

The perfect day for quitting is not real. It will never come, so might as well start today

That distrust which intrudes so often on your mind is a mode of melancholy, which, if it be the business of a wise man to be happy, it is foolish to indulge; and if it be a duty to preserve our faculties entire for their proper use, it is criminal. Suspicion is very often an useless pain.

It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.

In sovereignty there are no gradations.

Politeness is one of those advantages which we never estimate rightly but by the inconvenience of its loss.

Though the wisdom or virtue of one can very rarely make many happy, the folly or vice of one man often make many miserable.