Vanity is so frequently the apparent motive of advice, that we, for the most part, summon our powers to oppose it without any very accurate inquiry whether it is right.

We ought not to raise expectations which it is not in our power to satisfy.-It is more pleasing to see smoke brightening into flame, than flame sinking into smoke.

Wine gives a man nothing... it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.

No estimate is more in danger of erroneous calculations than those by which a man computes the force of his own genius.

Repentance, however difficult to be practiced, is, if it be explained without superstition, easily understood. Repentance is the relinquishment of any practice from the conviction that it has offended God.

Every man prefers virtue, when there is not some strong incitement to transgress its precepts.

The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effrontery.