You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables.

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

When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.

No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned... a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.

The great effect of friendship is beneficence, yet by the first act of uncommon kindness it is endangered.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it.