Sir, I do not call a gamester a dishonest man; but I call him an unsociable man, an unprofitable man. Gaming is a mode of transferring property without producing any intermediate good.

Pain is less subject than pleasure to careless expression.

There is no temper more unpropitious to interest than desultory application and unlimited inquiry, by which the desires are held in a perpetual equipoise, and the mind fluctuates between different purposes without determination.

The superiority of some men is merely local. They are great because their associates are little.

The great source of pleasure is variety.

Even those to whom Providence has allotted greater strength of understanding can expect only to improve a single science.

Ignorance cannot always be inferred from inaccuracy; knowledge is not always present.