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

Moderation is commonly firm, and firmness is commonly successful.

The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.

When a poet mentions the spring, we know that the zephyrs are about to whisper, that the groves are to recover their verdure, the linnets to warble forth their notes of love, and the flocks and herds to frisk over vales painted with flowers: yet, who is there so insensible of the beauties of nature, so little delighted with the renovation of the world, as not to feel his heart bound at the mention of the spring?

Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.

All violation of established practice implies in its own nature a rejection of the common opinion, a defiance of common censure, and an appeal from general laws to private judgment: he, therefore, who differs form others without apparent advantage, ought not to be angry if his arrogance is punished with ridicule; if those whose example he superciliously overlooks, point him out to derision, and hoot him back again into the common road.