Wit, like hunger, will be with great difficulty restrained from falling on vice and ignorance, where there is great plenty and variety of food..

With the latitude of unbounded scurrility, it is easy enough to attain the character of a wit, especially when it is considered how wonderfully pleas….

It is with jealousy as with the gout. When such distempers are in the blood, there is never any security against their breaking out, and that often o….

The greatest part of mankind labor under one delirium or another; and Don Quixote differed from the rest, not in madness, but the species of it. The ….

I look upon the vulgar observation, 'That the devil often deserts his friends, and leaves them in the lurch,' to be a great abuse on that gentleman's….

A good heart will, at all times, betray the best head in the world..

Where the law ends tyranny begins..

There are persons of that general philanthropy and easy tempers, which the world in contempt generally calls good-natured, who seem to be sent into t….

Human life very much resembles a game of chess: for, as in the latter, while a gamester is too attentive to secure himself very strongly on one side ….

A beau is everything of a woman but the sex, and nothing of a man beside it..

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 i….

Money is the fruit of evil, as often as the root of it..

The good or evil we confer on others very often, I believe, recoils on ourselves; for as men of a benign disposition enjoy their own acts of benefice….

I describe not men, but manners; not an individual, but a species..

It is well known to all great men, that by conferring an obligation they do not always procure a friend, but are certain of creating many enemies..

However exquisitely human nature may have been described by writers, the true practical system can be learned only in the world..

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..

It is not enough that your designs, nay that your actions, are intrinsically good, you must take care they shall appear so..

A rich man without charity is a rogue; and perhaps it would be no difficult matter to prove that he is also a fool..

There are those who never reason on what they should do, but what they have done; as if Reason had her eyes behind, and could only see backwards..

Considering the unforeseen events of this world, we should be taught that no human condition should inspire men with absolute despair..