Few men survey themselves with so much severity as not to admit prejudices in their own favor.

Consider what importance to society the chastity of women is. Upon that all the property in the world depends. We hang a thief for stealing a sheep; but the unchastity of a woman transfers sheep and farm and all from the right owner.

About things on which the public thinks long it commonly attains to think right.

Vanity is so frequently the apparent motive of advice that we, for the most part, summon our powers to oppose it without very accurate inquiry whether it is right. It is sufficient that another is growing great in his own eyes at our expense, and assumes authority over us without our permission; for many would contentedly suffer the consequences of their own mistakes, rather than the insolence of him who triumphs as their deliverer.

When the eye or the imagination is struck with an uncommon work, the next transition of an active mind is to the means by which it was performed

When any calamity is suffered, the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped.

The stream of Time, which is continually washing the dissoluble fabrics of other poets, passes without injury by the adamant of Shakespeare.