The most useful truths are always universal, and unconnected with accidents and customs.

It is however, reasonable, to have perfection in our eye; that we may always advance towards it, though we know it never can be reached.

A short letter to a distant friend is, in my opinion, an insult like that of a slight bow or cursory salutation - a proof of unwillingness to do much, even where there is a necessity of doing something.

When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency.

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.

In order that all men might be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.

My diseases are an asthma and a dropsy and, what is less curable, seventy-five.