The hopes of zeal are not wholly groundless.

There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.

It is commonly a weak man who marries for love.

Life must be filled up, and the man who is not capable of intellectual pleasures must content himself with such as his senses can afford.

Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded, for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction.

Do not ... hope wholly to reason away your troubles; do not feed them with attention, and they will die imperceptibly away. Fix your thoughts upon your business, fill your intervals with company, and sunshine will again break in upon your mind.

High people, sir, are the best; take a hundred ladies of quality, you'll find them better wives, better mothers, more willing to sacrifice their own pleasures to their children, than a hundred other woman.