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.

You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense of their labor, than when you give money merely in charity.

If, sir, men were all virtuous, I should with great alacrity teach them all to fly. But what would be the security of the good if the bad could at pleasure invade them from the sky? Against an army sailing through the clouds neither wall, nor mountains, nor seas could afford any security.

The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effrontery.

One cause, which is not always observed, of the insufficiency of riches, is that they very seldom make their owner rich.

The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it.

An age that melts in unperceiv'd decay, And glides in modest innocence away.