To get a name can happen but to few. A name, even in the most commercial nation, is one of the few things which cannot be bought . It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed.

Among the lower classes of mankind there will be found very little desire of any other knowledge than what may contribute immediately to the relief of some pressing uneasiness, or the attainment of some near advantage.

Self-love is a busy prompter.

Solitude is the surest nurse of all prurient passions, and a girl in the hurry of preparation, or tumult of gaiety, has neither inclination nor leisure to let tender expressions soften or sink into her heart. The ball, the show, are not the dangerous places: no, 'tis the private friend, the kind consoler, the companion of the easy vacant hour, whose compliance with her opinions can flatter her vanity, and whose conversation can sooth, without ever stretching her mind, that is the lover to be feared: he who buzzes in her ear at court, or at the opera, must be contented to buzz in vain.

A man who always talks for fame never can be pleasing. The man who talks to unburthen his mind is the man to delight you.

Of the present state, whatever it be, we feel and are forced to confess the misery; yet when the same state is again at a distance, imagination paints it as desirable.

If the man who turnips cries, Cry not when his father dies, 'Tis proof that he had rather Have a turnip than his father.