Where secrecy or mystery begins, vice or roguery is not far off.

Much mischief is done in the world with very little interest or design.

The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it.

Falsehoods of convenience or vanity, falsehoods from which no evil immediately visible ensues, except the general degradation of human testimony, are very lightly uttered, and once uttered are sullenly supported.

A fallible being will fail somewhere.

I am sorry I have not learnt to play at cards. It is very useful in life: it generates kindness, and consolidates society.

Every man is prompted by the love of himself to imagine that he possesses some qualities superior, either in kind or degree, to those which he sees allotted to the rest of the world.