If we estimate dignity by immediate usefulness, agriculture is undoubtedly the first and noblest science.

Almost all the moral good which is left among us is the apparent effect of physical evil.

Hope is an amusement rather than a good, and adapted to none but very tranquil minds.

There is such a difference between the pursuits of men in great cities that one part of the inhabitants lives to little other purpose than to wonder at the rest. Some have hopes and fears, wishes and aversions, which never enter into the thoughts of others, and inquiry is laboriously exerted to gain that which those who possess it are ready to throw away.

A man who is good enough to go to heaven is good enough to be a clergyman.

It was his peculiar happiness that he scarcely ever found a stranger whom he did not leave a friend; but it must likewise be added, that he had not often a friend long without obliging him to become a stranger.

Few moments are more pleasing than those in which the mind is concerting measures for a new undertaking.