A cloudy day or a little sunshine have as great an influence on many constitutions as the most recent blessings or misfortunes.

There is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady’s head-dress.

A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.

Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures.

A woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes.

To be an atheist requires an indefinitely greater measure of faith than to recieve all the great truths which atheism would deny.

We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us.

A misery is not to be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the sufferer.

If you wish success in life, make perseverance you bosom friend, experience your wise councellor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.

A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of.

A true critic ought to dwell upon excellencies rather than imperfections, to discover the concealed beauties of a writer, and communicate to the world such things as are worth their observation.

One should take good care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life as laughter.

Music, the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have hear below.

A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.

When men are easy in their circumstances, they are naturally enemies to innovations.

Should the whole frame of nature round him break,In ruin and confusion hurled,He, unconcerned, would hear the mighty crack,And stand secure amidst a falling world.

There is nothing that makes its way more directly into the soul than beauty.

I will indulge my sorrows, and give way to all the pangs and fury of despair.

Is there not some chosen curse, some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven, red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man who owes his greatness to his country’s ruin!

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.

Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.

Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity.

The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years, But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, Unhurt amidst the wars of elements, The wrecks of matter, and...

Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.

Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter. In love to our wives there is desire; to our sons, ambition, but to our...

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

Talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.

I have somewhere met with the epitaph on a charitable man which has pleased me very much. I cannot recollect the words, but here is the sense of it: ‘What I spent I lost; what...

What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul.

There is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol.

Young men soon give, and soon forget, affronts; old age is slow in both.

If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter. He has a heart capable of mirth, and naturally disposed to it.

Mere bashfulness without merit is awkwardness.

Jealousy is that pain which a man feels from the apprehension that he is not equally beloved by the person whom he entirely loves.

That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?

The most violent appetites in all creatures are lust and hunger; the first is a perpetual call upon them to propagate their kind, the latter to preserve themselves.

To say that authority, whether secular or religious, supplies no ground for morality is not to deny the obvious fact that it supplies a sanction.

With regard to donations always expect the most from prudent people, who keep their own accounts.

Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating...

Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.

Cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.

Better to die ten thousand deaths than wound my honor.

Irregularity and want of method are only supportable in men of great learning or genius, who are often too full to be exact, and therefore they choose to throw down their pearls in heaps before...

Admiration is a very short-lived passion, that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object.

Animals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass.

The utmost extent of man’s knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing.

The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover.

The unassuming youth seeking instruction with humility gains good fortune.

There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.

Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue.