That distrust which intrudes so often on your mind is a mode of melancholy, which, if it be the business of a wise man to be happy, it is foolish to indulge; and if it be a duty to preserve our faculties entire for their proper use, it is criminal. Suspicion is very often an useless pain.

It is the just doom of laziness and gluttony to be inactive without ease and drowsy without tranquility.

Unconstraint is the grace of conversation.

Forgetfulness is necessary to remembrance. Ideas are retained by renovation of that impression which time is always wearing away,and which new images are striving to obliterate. If useless thoughts could be expelled from the mind, all the valuable parts of our knowledge would more frequently recur, and every recurrence would reinstate them in their former place.

What is said upon a subject is gathered from an hundred people.

No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it.

He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him.