The violence of war admits no distinction; the lance, that is lifted at guilt and power, will sometimes fall on innocence and gentleness.
Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young.
To a people warlike and indigent, an incursion into a rich country is never hurtful.
The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.
He who expects much will be often disappointed; yet disappointment seldom cures us of expectation, or has any other effect than that of producing a moral sentence or peevish exclamation.
The pleasure of expecting enjoyment is often greater than that of obtaining it, and the completion of almost every wish is found a disappointment.
That all who are happy are equally happy is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. A small drinking glass and a large one may be equally full, but the large one holds more than the small.
Whatever you have spend less.
Pride is seldom delicate; it will please itself with very mean advantages.
More knowledge may be gained of a man’s real character by a short conversation with one of his servants than from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his pedigree and ended with his funeral.
Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
Whatever is formed for long duration arrives slowly to its maturity.
Advertisements are now so numerous that they are very negligently perused, and it is therefore become necessary to gain attention by magnificence of promises, and by eloquence sometimes sublime and sometimes pathetic.
The superiority of some men is merely local. They are great because their associates are little.
He was dull in a new way, and that made many think him great.
Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.
Age is rarely despised but when it is, contemptible.
The world will never be long without some good reason to hate the unhappy; their real faults are immediately detected; and if those are not sufficient to sink them into infamy, an individual weight of calumny will be super-added.
I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.
It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy and yet unenvied, to be healthy with physic, secure without a guard, and to obtain from the bounty of nature what the great and wealthy are compelled to procure by the help of art.