Disappointment, when it involves neither shame nor loss, is as good as success; for it supplies as many images to the mind, and as many topics to the tongue.

Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen.

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

In a Man's Letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirrour of his breast.

Whoever envies another confesses his superiority.

No writer can be fully convicted of imitation except there is a concurrence of more resemblance than can be imagined to have happened by chance; as where the same ideas are conjoined without any natural series or necessary coherence, or where not only the thought but the words are copied.

Good sense alone is a sedate and quiescent quality, which manages its possessions well, but does not increase them; it collects few materials for its own operations, and preserves safety, but never gains supremacy.