When the eye or the imagination is struck with an uncommon work, the next transition of an active mind is to the means by which it was performed

What signifies protesting so against flattery when a person speaks well of one, it must either be true or false, you know if true, let us rejoice in his good opinion if he lies, it is a proof at least that he loves more to please me, than to sit s

Actions are visible, though motives are secret.

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

Falsehoods of convenience or vanity, falsehoods from which no evil immediately visible ensues, except the general degradation of human testimony, are very lightly uttered, and once uttered are sullenly supported.

There is no being so poor and so contemptible, who does not think there is somebody still poorer, and still more contemptible.

To set the mind above the appetites is the end of abstinence, which one of the Fathers observes to be not a virtue, but the groundwork of virtue.