The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.

Our desires always increase with our possessions. The knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.

Pride is seldom delicate, it will please itself with very mean advantages; and envy feels not its own happiness, but when it may be compared with the misery of others

Sorrow is properly that state of the mind in which our desires are fixed upon the past without looking forward to the future.

A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.

To read, write, and converse in due proportions, is, therefore, the business of a man of letters.

Every state of society is as luxurious as it can be. Men always take the best they can get.