A certain excess of animal spirits with thoughtless good-humor will often make more enemies than the most deliberate spite and ill-nature, which is on its guard, and strikes with caution and safety.

You shall yourself be judge. Reason, with most people, means their own opinion.

The fear of approaching death, which in youth we imagine must cause inquietude to the aged, is very seldom the source of much uneasiness.

Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.

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

A felon could plead "benefit of clergy" and be saved by [reading aloud] what was aptly enough termed the "neck verse", which was very usually the Miserere mei of Psalm 51.

The greatest pleasure in life is that of reading while we are young. I have had as much of this pleasure perhaps as any one.