The great end of prudence is to give cheerfulness to those hours which splendor cannot gild, and acclamation cannot exhilarate.

There is no observation more frequently made by such as employ themselves in surveying the conduct of mankind, than that marriage, though the dictate of nature, and the institution of Providence, is yet very often the cause of misery, and that those who enter into that state can seldom forbear to express their repentance, and their envy of those whom either chance or caution hath withheld from it.

We have always pretensions to fame which, in our own hearts, we know to be disputable.

The present time is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment, and we are forced to supply its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation.

Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye.

All severity that does not tend to increase good, or prevent evil, is idle.

..to write and to live are very different. Many who praise virtue, do no more than praise it.