Few moments are more pleasing than those in which the mind is concerting measures for a new undertaking.

There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman.

Rain is good for vegetables, and for the animals who eat those vegetables, and for the animals who eat those animals.

A man of sense and education should meet a suitable companion in a wife. It is a miserable thing when the conversation can only be such as whether the mutton should be boiled or roasted, and probably a dispute about that.

The mind is seldom quickened to very vigorous operations but by pain, or the dread of pain. We do not disturb ourselves with the detection of fallacies which do us no harm.

A transition from an author's book to his conversation is too often like an entrance into a large city, after a distant prospect. Remotely, we see nothing but spires of temples and turrets of palaces, and imagine it the residence of splendour, grandeur, and magnificence; but when we have passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded with smoke.

You cannot give me an instance of any man who is permitted to lay out his own time contriving not to have tedious hours.