When any calamity is suffered, the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped.

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.

Without good humour, learning and bravery can only confer that superiority which swells the heart of the lion in the desert, where he roars without reply, and ravages without resistance. Without good humour virtue may awe by its dignity and amaze by its brightness, but must always be viewed at a distance, and will scarcely gain a friend or attract an imitator.

Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.

We often need reminding even if we do not often need educating.

I wish you would add an index rerum, that when the reader recollects any incident he may easily find it.

Let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is not known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he is known.