Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.

We are unreasonably desirous to separate the goods of life from those evils which Providence has connected with them, and to catch advantages without paying the price at which they are offered to us. Every man wishes to be rich, but very few have the powers necessary to raise a sudden fortune, either by new discoveries, or by superiority of skill in any necessary employment; and among lower understandings many want the firmness and industry requisite to regular gain and gradual acquisitions.

Men go to sea, before they know the unhappiness of that way of life; and when they have come to know it, they cannot escape from it, because it is then too late to choose another profession; as indeed is generally the case with men, when they have once engaged in any particular way of life.

Those authors are to be read at schools that supply most axioms of prudence.

A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden.

Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.

Friendship may well deserve the sacrifice of pleasure, though not of conscience.