Man is a poetical animal, and delights in fiction.

The soil of friendship is worn out with constant use. Habit may still attach us to each other, but we feel ourselves fettered by it. Old friends might be compared to old married people without the tie of children.

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.

Old friendships are like meats served up repeatedly, cold, comfortless, and distasteful. The stomach turns against them.

To think ill of mankind and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.

Poverty, when it is voluntary, is never despicable, but takes an heroical aspect.

The idea of what the public will think prevents the public from ever thinking at all, and acts as a spell on the exercise of private judgment.