The cure for the greatest part of human miseries is not radical, but palliative.

So willing is every man to flatter himself, that the difference between approving laws, and obeying them, is frequently forgotten; he that acknowledges the obligations of morality and pleases his vanity with enforcing them to others, concludes himself zealous in the cause of virtue.

All theory is against free will; all experience is for it.

Confidence is a plant of slow growth; especially in an aged bosom

The misery of man proceeds not from any single crush of overwhelming evil, but from small vexations continually repeated.

New arts are long in the world before poets describe them; for they borrow everything from their predecessors, and commonly derive very little from nature or from life.

Every man is of importance to himself.