Those who are fond of setting things to rights, have no great objection to seeing them wrong.

What passes in the world for talent or dexterity or enterprise is often only a want of moral principle. We may succeed where others fail, not from a greater share of invention, but from not being nice in the choice of expedients.

We do not like our friends the worse because they sometimes give us an opportunity to rail at them heartily. Their faults reconcile us to their virtues.

As we are poetical in our natures, so we delight in fable.

Who likes not his business, his business likes not him.

To speak highly of one with whom we are intimate is a species of egotism. Our modesty as well as our jealousy teaches us caution on this subject.

It is remarkable how virtuous and generously disposed every one is at a play.