Pain and disease awaken us to convictions which are necessary to our moral condition.

Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last; and perhaps always predominates in proportion to the strength of the contemplative faculties. He who easily comprehends all that is before him, and soon exhausts any single subject, is always eager for new inquiries; and in proportion as the intellectual eye takes in a wider prospect, it must be gratified with variety, by more rapid flights and bolder excursions.

Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it.

Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.

A gentleman who had been very unhappy in marriage, married immediately after his wife died; it was the triumph of hope over experience.

The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered, but a general effect of pleasing impression.

No one will persist long in helping someone who will not help themselves.