I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.

To hear complaints with patience, even when complaints are vain, is one of the duties of friendship.

Any of us would kill a cow rather than not have beef.

Books without the knowledge of life are useless.

Such is the emptiness of human enjoyment that we are always impatient of the present. Attainment is followed by neglect, and possession by disgust.

By writing, you learn to write.

Health is certainly more valuable than money; because it is by health that money is procured; but thousands and millions are of small avail to alleviate the protracted tortures of the gout, to repair the broken organs of sense, or resuscitate the powers of digestion. Poverty is, indeed, an evil from which we naturally fly, but let us not run from one enemy to another, nor take shelter in the arms of sickness.