There is no observation more frequently made by such as employ themselves in surveying the conduct of mankind, than that marriage, though the dictate of nature, and the institution of Providence, is yet very often the cause of misery, and that those who enter into that state can seldom forbear to express their repentance, and their envy of those whom either chance or caution hath withheld from it.

None of the projects or designs which exercise the mind of man are equally subject to obstructions and disappointments with the pursuit of fame.

God Himself, sir, does not propose to judge a man until his life is over. Why should you and I?

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity. It becomes cheap as it becomes vulgar, and will no longer raise expectation or animate enterprise.

The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity... The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

See nations slowly wise, and meanly just, to buried merit raise the tardy bust.