It is not from reason and prudence that people marry, but from inclination.

He that has once concluded it lawful to resist power, when it wants merit, will soon find a want of merit, to justify his resistance to power.

Cowardice encroaches fast upon such as spend their lives in company of persons higher than themselves.

A short letter to a distant friend is, in my opinion, an insult like that of a slight bow or cursory salutation - a proof of unwillingness to do much, even where there is a necessity of doing something.

Providence has fixed the limits of human enjoyment by immovable boundaries, and has set different gratifications at such a distance from each other, that no art or power can bring them together. This great law it is the business of every rational being to understand, that life may not pass away in an attempt to make contradictions consistent, to combine opposite qualities, and to unite things which the nature of their being must always keep asunder.

We seldom learn the true want of what we have till it is discovered that we can have no more.

No mind is much employed upon the present; recollection and anticipation fill up almost all our moments.