Surely no man can reflect, without wonder upon the vicissitudes of human life arising from causes in the highest degree accidental and trifling. If you trace the necessary concatenation of human events a very little way back, you may perhaps discover that a person's very going in or out of a door has been the means of coloring with misery or happiness the remaining current of his life.

Discernment is a power of the understanding in which few excel. Is not that owing to its connection with impartiality and truth? for are not prejudice and partiality blind?

We should do by our cunning as we do by our courage--always have it ready to defend ourselves, never to offend others.

A proud man never shows his pride so much as when he is civil.

Men and statues that are admired ire an elevated situation have a very different effect upon us when we approach them; the first appear less than we imagined them, the last bigger.

There is an unfortunate disposition in a man to attend much more to the faults of his companions which offend him, than to their perfections which please him.

Good-humor is allied to generosity, ill-humor to meanness.