Teach him to live unto God and unto thee; and he will discover that women, like the plants in woods, derive their softness and tenderness from the shade.

Everything that looks to the future elevates human nature; for never is life so low or so little as when occupied with the present.

Be assured that, although men of eminent genius have been guilty of all other vices, none worthy of more than a secondary name has ever been a gamester. Either an excess of avarice or a deficiency of what, in physics, is called excitability, is the cause of it; neither of which can exist in the same bosom with genius, with patriotism, or with virtue.

Modesty and diffidence make a man unfit for public affairs; they also make him unfit for brothels.

We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier.

If there were no falsehood in the world, there would be no doubt, if there were no doubt, there would be no inquiry; if no inquiry, no wisdom, no knowledge, no genius; and Fancy herself would lie muffled up in her robe, inactive, pale, and bloated.

Authors are like cattle going to a fair: those of the same field can never move on without butting one another.