Familiarity confounds all traits of distinction; interest and prejudice take away the power of judging.

I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it; who sees at once what, in given circumstances, is to be done, and does it.

To die is only to be as we were before we were born; yet no one feels any remorse, or regret, or repugnance, in contemplating this last idea.

No young man ever thinks he shall die.

People do not persist in their vices because they are not weary of them, but because they cannot leave them off. It is the nature of vice to leave us no resource but in itself.

The most phlegmatic dispositions often contain the most inflammable spirits, as fire is struck from the hardest flints.

The mind of man is like a clock that is always running down, and requires to be constantly wound up.