Resentment gratifies him who intended an injury, and pains him unjustly who did not intend it.

Cautious age suspects the flattering form, and only credits what experience tells.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it.

Whatever enlarges hope will also exalt courage.

A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.

He that condemns himself to compose on a stated day will often bring to his task attention dissipated, a memory embarrassed, an imagination overwhelmed, a mind distracted with anxieties, a body languishing with disease: he will labour on a barren topic till it is too late to change it; or, in the ardour of invention, diffuse his thoughts into wild exuberance, which the pressing hour of publication cannot suffer judgment to examine or reduce.

But the distant hope of being one day useful or eminent ought not to mislead us too far from that study which is equally requisite to the great and mean, to the celebrated and obscure; the art of moderating the desires, of repressing the appetites; and of conciliating or retaining the favour of mankind.