The wise man applauds he who he thinks most virtuous; the rest of the world applauds the wealthy.

Good breeding consists in having no particular mark of any profession, but a general elegance of manners.

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

He is no wise man who will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.

Among the numerous requisites that must concur to complete an author, few are of more importance than an early entrance into the living world. The seed of knowledge may be planted in solitude, but must be cultivated in public. Argumentation may be taught in colleges, and theories formed in retirement; but the artifice of embellishment and the powers of attraction can be gained only by a general converse.

Pride is seldom delicate; it will please itself with very mean advantages.

Many of our miseries are merely comparative: we are often made unhappy, not by the presence of any real evil, but by the absence of some fictitious good; of something which is not required by any real want of nature, which has not in itself any power of gratification, and which neither reason nor fancy would have prompted us to wish, did we not see it in the possession of others.