Our minds should not be empty because if they are not preoccupied by good, evil will break in upon them.

Differences, we know, are never so effectually laid asleep as by some common calamity; an enemy unites all to whom he threatens danger.

No man tells his opinion so freely as when he imagines it received with implicit veneration.

Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding.

The most fatal disease of friendship is gradual decay, or dislike hourly increased by causes too slender for complaint, and too numerous for removal.

It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.

Diffidence may check resolution and obstruct performance, but compensates its embarrassments by more important advantages; it conciliates the proud, and softens the severe; averts envy from excellence, and censure from miscarriage.