The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.

Where grief is fresh, any attempt to divert it only irritates.

If a man begins to read in the middle of a book, and feels an inclination to go on, let him not quit it to go to the beginning. He may perhaps not feel again the inclination.

Among the lower classes of mankind there will be found very little desire of any other knowledge than what may contribute immediately to the relief of some pressing uneasiness, or the attainment of some near advantage.

Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions. What we have missed long enough to want it, we value more when it is regained; but that which has been lost till it is forgotten will be found at last with little gladness, and with still less if a substitute has supplied the place.

A few men are sufficient to broach falsehoods, which are afterwards innocently diffused by successive relaters.