Pound St. Paul's Church into atoms, and consider any single atom; it is to be sure, good for nothing; but put all these atoms together, and you have St. Paul's Church. So it is with human felicity, which is made up of many ingredients, each of which may be shown to be very insignificant.

No man is obliged to do as much as he can do. A man is to have part of his life to himself.

Commerce however we may please ourselves with the contrary opinion, is one of the daughters of fortune, inconstant and deceitful as her mother. She chooses her residence where she is least expected, and shifts her abode when her continuance is, in appearance, most firmly settled.

Spite and ill-nature are among the most expensive luxuries in life.

How can children credit the assertions of parents, which their own eyes show them to be false? Few parents act in such a manner as much to enforce their maxims by the credit of their lives

I also admit, that there are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking; as there are fruits which are not good till they are rotten.

Every man is prompted by the love of himself to imagine that he possesses some qualities, superior, either in kind or degree, to those which he sees allotted to the rest of the world; and, whatever apparent disadvantages he may suffer in the comparison with others, he has some invisible distinctions, some latent reserve of excellence, which he throws into the balance, and by which he generally fancies that it is turned in his favour.