People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.

A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity.

No wise man will go to live in the country, unless he has something to do which can be better done in the country. For instance, if he is to shut himself up for a year to study science, it is better to look out to the fields, than to an opposite wall. Then, if a man walks out in the country, there is nobody to keep him from walking in again: but if a man walks out in London, he is not sure when he will walk in again. A great city is, to be sure, the school for studying life.

Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions.

A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but, one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.

The fiction of happiness is propagated by every tongue and confirmed by every look till at last all profess the joy which they do not feel and consent to yield to the general delusion.

In all evils which admit a remedy, impatience is to be avoided, because it wastes that time and attention in complaints, that, if properly applied might remove the cause.