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.

The world is an excellent judge in general, but a very bad one in particular.

Respect is better procured by exacting than soliciting it.

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

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

To divest one's self of some prejudices would be like taking off the skin to feel the better.

Whatever natural right men may have to freedom and independency, it is manifest that some men have a natural ascendency over others.