Men are most powerfully affected by those evils which themselves feel, or which appear before their own eyes.

No evil is insupportable but that which is accompanied with consciousness of wrong.

Whoever rises above those who once pleased themselves with equality, will have many malevolent gazers at his eminence.

A man finds in the productions of nature an inexhaustible stock of material on which he can employ himself, without any temptations to envy or malevolence, and has always a certain prospect of discovering new reasons for adoring the sovereign author of the universe.

Probably no one will ever know whether it is better to wear a nightcap or not.

What is easy is seldom excellent.

When a friend is carried to his grave, we at once find excuses for every weakness, and palliation of every fault. We recollect a thousand endearments, which before glided off our minds without impression, a thousand favors unrepaid, a thousand duties unperformed; and wish, vainly wish, for his return, not so much that we may receive as that we may bestow happiness, and recompense that kindness which before we never understood.