Poverty is often concealed in splendor, and often in extravagance. It is the task of many people to conceal their neediness from others. Consequently they support themselves by temporary means, and everyday is lost in contriving for tomorrow.

Every cold empirick, when his heart is expanded by a successful experiment, swells into a theorist.

Courtesy and good-humour are often found with little real worth.

No man sympathizes with the sorrows of vanity.

Piety practiced in solitude, like the flower that blooms in the desert, may give its fragrance to the winds of heaven, and delight those unbodied spirits that survey the works of God and the actions of men; but it bestows no assistance upon earthly beings, and however free from taints of impurity, yet wants the sacred splendor of beneficence.

The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne.

Wit is that which has been often thought, but never before was well expressed.