No one is much pleased with a companion who does not increase, in some respect, their fondness for themselves.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

At seventy-seven it is time to be earnest.

Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.

This is one of the disadvantages of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they have betaken, themselves to errour. Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to...

The triumph of hope over experience

While an author is yet living we estimate his powers by his worst performance, and when he is dead we rate them by his best.

My dear friend, clear your mind of cant [excessive thought]. You may talk as other people do: you may say to a man, “Sir, I am your most humble servant.” You are not his most...

He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.

We are told, that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution of our own liberties; an event, which none but very perspicacious politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally contagious,...

Quoting Samuel Johnson: “Men know that women are an overmatch for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or the most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women...

The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life...

I cannot forbear to wish, that this commotion (in the colonies) may end without bloodshed, and that the rebels may be subdued by terror rather than by violence; and, therefore, recommend such a force as...

It has been observed in all ages that the advantages of nature or of fortune have contributed very little to the promotion of happiness; and that those whom the splendour of their rank, or the...

Don’t, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.

Sir, I did not count your glasses of wine, why should you number up my cups of tea?

In all evils which admit a remedy, impatience should be avoided, because it wastes that time and attention in complaints which, if properly applied, might remove the cause

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it.

Language is the dress of thought.

He that embarks on the voyage of life will always wish to advance rather by the impulse of the wind than the strokes of the oar; and many fold in their passage; while they lie...

Imitations produce pain or pleasure, not because they are mistaken for realities, but because they bring realities to mind.

We love to overlook the boundaries which we do not wish to pass.

We have less reason to be surprised or offended when we find others differ from us in opinions because we very often differ from ourselves.

They make a rout about universal liberty, without considering that all that is to be valued, or indeed can be enjoyed by individuals, is private liberty