Attention and respect give pleasure, however late, or however useless. But they are not useless, when they are late, it is reasonable to rejoice, as the day declines, to find that it has been spent with the approbation of mankind.

While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.

No knowledge is useless, with the exception of heraldry.

Fly-fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.

There is nothing against which an old man should be so much upon his guard as putting himself to nurse.

Merit rather enforces respect than attracts fondness.

I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's virtues the means of deceiving him.