We trifle with, make sport of, and despise those who are attached to us, and follow those that fly from us.

Some one is generally sure to be the sufferer by a joke.

The thing is plain. All that men really understand, is confined to a very small compass; to their daily affairs and experience; to what they have an opportunity to know, and motives to study or practice. The rest is affectation and imposture.

They are the only honest hypocrites, their life is a voluntary dream, a studied madness.

People are not soured by misfortune, but by the reception they meet with in it.

The present is an age of talkers, and not of doers; and the reason is, that the world is growing old. We are so far advanced in the Arts and Sciences, that we live in retrospect, and dote on past achievement.

Even in the common affairs of life, in love, friendship, and marriage, how little security have we when we trust our happiness in the hands of others!