Such is the pleasure of projecting that many content themselves with a succession of visionary schemes, and wear out their allotted time in the calm amusement of contriving what they never attempt or hope to execute.

The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.

Pity is not natural to man. Children are always cruel. Savages are always cruel. Pity is acquired and improved by the cultivation of reason. We may have uneasy sensations from seeing a creature in distress, without pity; for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

We may have uneasy feelings for seeing a creature in distress without pity; for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them.

Such is the uncertainty of human affairs, that security and despair are equal follies; and as it is presumption and arrogance to anticipate triumphs, it is weakness and cowardice to prog-nosticate miscarriages.