Lawful and settled authority is very seldom resisted when it is well employed.
Apologies are seldom of any use.
A book should teach us to enjoy life, or to endure it.
It very seldom happens to a man that his business is his pleasure.
He that has too much to do will do something wrong.
I have always considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he is able to maintain.
It is as foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend, as upon the chastity of a wife.
There is no being so poor and so contemptible, who does not think there is somebody still poorer, and still more contemptible.
I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.
Every man wishes to be wise, and they who cannot be wise are almost always cunning.
A man had rather have a hundred lies told of him than one truth which he does not wish should be told.
Pity is not natural to man. Children always are cruel. Savages are always cruel.
Every man speaks and writes with intent to be understood; and it can seldom happen but he that understands himself might convey his notions to another, if, content to be understood, he did not seek to be admired.
Every man has something to do which he neglects, every man has faults to conquer which he delays to combat.
A man with a good coat upon his back meets with a better reception than he who has a bad one.
We ought not to raise expectations which it is not in our power to satisfy.-It is more pleasing to see smoke brightening into flame, than flame sinking into smoke.
The balls of sight are so formed, that one man’s eyes are spectacles to another, to read his heart with.
Every man has a lurking wish to appear considerable in his native place.
Such seems to be the disposition of man, that whatever makes a distinction produces rivalry.
There are people whom one should like very well to drop, but would not wish to be dropped by.