No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance.

Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.

He that travels in theory has no inconveniences.

..to write and to live are very different. Many who praise virtue, do no more than praise it.

Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.

The fortitude which has encountered no dangers, that prudence which has surmounted no difficulties, that integrity which has been attacked by no temptation, can at best be considered but as gold not yet brought to the test, of which therefore the true value cannot be assigned.