It is certain that success naturally confirms in us a favourable opinion of our own abilities. Scarce any man is willing to allot to accident, friendship, and a thousand causes, which concur in every event without human contrivance or interposition, the part which they may justly claim in his advancement. We rate ourselves by our fortune rather than our virtues, and exorbitant claims are quickly produced by imaginary merit.

Many causes may vitiate a writer's judgement of his own works. On that which has cost him much labour he sets a high value, because he is unwilling to think that he has been diligent in vain: what has been produced without toilsome efforts is considered with delight as a proof of vigorous faculties and fertile invention; and the last work, whatever it be, has necessarily most of the grace of novelty.

To forget, or pretend to do so, to return a borrowed article, is the meanest sort of petty theft.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

As all error is meanness, it is incumbent on every man who consults his own dignity, to retract it as soon as he discovers it.

A family ... is a little kingdom, torn with factions and exposed to revolutions.

Mutual complacency is the atmosphere of conjugal love.