We are unreasonably desirous to separate the goods of life from those evils which Providence has connected with them, and to catch advantages without paying the price at which they are offered to us. Every man wishes to be rich, but very few have the powers necessary to raise a sudden fortune, either by new discoveries, or by superiority of skill in any necessary employment; and among lower understandings many want the firmness and industry requisite to regular gain and gradual acquisitions.

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.

Men who cannot deceive others are very often successful at deceiving themselves.

Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound: great debts are like cannon; of loud noise, but little danger.

The cure for the greatest part of human miseries is not radical, but palliative.

The love of retirement has in all ages adhered closely to those minds which have been most enlarged by knowledge, or elevated by genius. Those who enjoyed everything generally supposed to confer happiness have been forced to seek it in the shades of privacy.