Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

The highest panegyric, therefore, that private virtue can receive, is the praise of servants.

Every man has a lurking wish to appear considerable in his native place.

I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.

A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.

You never find people laboring to convince you that you may live very happily upon a plentiful income.

There is nothing more dreadful to an author than neglect; compared with which reproach, hatred, and opposition are names of happiness; yet this worst, this meanest fate, every one who dares to write has reason to fear.