To a people warlike and indigent, an incursion into a rich country is never hurtful.

It would add much to human happiness, if an art could be taught of forgetting all of which the remembrance is at once useless and afflictive, that the mind might perform its functions without encumbrance, and the past might no longer encroach upon the present.

The hour of reformation is always delayed; every delay gives vice another opportunity of fortifying itself by habit.

Lawful and settled authority is very seldom resisted when it is well employed.

A transition from an author's book to his conversation, is too often like an entrance into a large city.

Wit will never make a man rich, but there are places where riches will always make a wit.

More knowledge may be gained of a man's real character by a short conversation with one of his servants than from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his pedigree and ended with his funeral.