Sir, I have no objection to a man's drinking wine, if he can do it in moderation. I found myself apt to go to excess in it, and therefore, after having been for some time without it, on account of illness, I thought it better not to return to it. Every man is to judge for himself, according to the effects which he experiences.

A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.

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

Books have always a secret influence on the understanding.

A married man has many cares, but a bachelor no pleasures.

Consultation and compliance can conduce little to the perfection of any literary performance; for whoever is so doubtful of his own abilities as to encourage the remarks of others, will find himself every day embarrassed with new difficulties, and will harass his mind, in vain, with the hopeless labour of uniting heterogeneous ideas, digesting independent hints, and collecting into one point the several rays of borrowed light, emitted often with contrary directions.

To dread no eye and to suspect no tongue is the great prerogative of innocence--an exemption granted only to invariable virtue.