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.

What is the reason that women servants ... have much lower wages than men servants ... when in fact our female house servants work much harder than the male?

If misery be the effect of virtue, it ought to be reverenced; if of ill-fortune, to be pitied; and if of vice, not to be insulted, because it is perhaps itself a punishment adequate to the crime by which it was produced.

I should as soon think of contradicting a bishop

There is nothing more dreadful to an author than neglect; compared with which reproach, hatred, and opposition are names of happiness; yet this worst, this meanest fate, every one who dares to write has reason to fear.

Many need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled.

Spite and ill-nature are among the most expensive luxuries in life.