Those who attain any excellence, commonly spend life in one pursuit; for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.

There are few so free from vanity as not to dictate to those who will hear their instructions with a visible sense of their own beneficence.

Whatever professes to benefit by pleasing must please at once. The pleasures of the mind imply something sudden and unexpected; that which elevates must always surprise.

Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.

Much mischief is done in the world with very little interest or design.

Every man is prompted by the love of himself to imagine that he possesses some qualities superior, either in kind or degree, to those which he sees allotted to the rest of the world.

Every man wishes to be wise, and they who cannot be wise are almost always cunning.