Everybody loves to have things which please the palate put in their way, without trouble or preparation.

To understand the works of celebrated authors, to comprehend their systems, and retain their reasonings, is a task more than equal to common intellects; and he is by no means to be accounted useless or idle, who has stored his mind with acquired knowledge, and can detail it occasionally to others who have less leisure or weaker abilities.

There are occasions on which it is noble to dare to stand alone. To be pious among infidels, to be disinterested in a time of general venality, to lead a life of virtue and reason in the midst of sensualists, is a proof of a mind intent on nobler things than the praise or blame of men, of a soul fixed in the contemplation of the highest good, and superiour to the tyranny of custom and example.

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

Women have two weapons - cosmetics and tears

He who has provoked the shaft of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it.

It very seldom happens to a man that his business is his pleasure.