One cause, which is not always observed, of the insufficiency of riches, is that they very seldom make their owner rich.

Deviation from Nature is deviation from happiness.

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

Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is repaid in flattery.

When once a man has made celebrity necessary to his happiness, he has put it in the power of the weakest and most timorous malignity, if not to take away his satisfaction, at least to withhold it. His enemies may indulge their pride by airy negligence and gratify their malice by quiet neutrality.

Assertion is not argument; to contradict the statement of an opponent is not proof that you are correct.

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments; any enlargement of wishes is therefore equally destructive to happiness with the diminution of possession, and he that teaches another to long for what he never shall obtain is no less an enemy to his quiet than if he had robbed him of part of his patrimony