Hairbreadth missings of happiness look like the insults of Fortune.
Worth begets in base minds, envy; in great souls, emulation.
What’s vice today may be virtue, tomorrow.
Life may as properly be called an art as any other.
Penny saved is a penny got.
Men who pay for what they eat will insist on gratifying their palates.
A rich man without charity is a rogue; and perhaps it would be no difficult matter to prove that he is also a fool.
Can any man have a higher notion of the rule of right and the eternal fitness of things?
I describe not men, but manners; not an individual, but a species.
Great joy, especially after a sudden change of circumstances, is apt to be silent, and dwells rather in the heart than on the tongue.
When mighty roast beef was the Englishman’s food It ennobled our hearts and enriched our blood – Our soldiers were brave and our courtiers were good. Oh! the roast beef of England. And Old England’s roast beef.
No acquisitions of guilt can compensate the loss of that solid inward comfort of mind, which is the sure companion of innocence and virtue; nor can in the least balance the evil of that horror and anxiety which, in their room, guilt introduces into our bosoms.
Commend a fool for his wit, or a rogue for his honesty and he will receive you into his favour.
We must eat to live, and not live to eat.
To speak a bold truth, I am, after much mature deliberation, inclined to suspect that the public voice hath, in all ages, done much injustice to Fortune, and hath convicted her of many facts in which she had not the least concern.
A good conscience is never lawless in the worst regulated state, and will provide those laws for itself which the neglect of legislators had forgotten to supply.
As a conquered rebellion strengthens a government, or as health is more perfectly established by recovery from some diseases; so anger, when removed, often gives new life to affection.
There is scarcely any man, how much soever he may despise the character of a flatterer, but will condescend in the meanest manner to flatter himself.
In a debate, rather pull to pieces the argument of thy antagonists than offer him any of thy own; for thus thou wilt fight him in his own country.
There are two considerations which always imbitter the heart of an avaricious man – the one is a perpetual thirst after more riches, the other the prospect of leaving what he has already acquired.