“The wise man applauds he who he thinks most virtuous; the rest of the world applauds the wealthy.”
“The habit of looking on the best side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a years.”
“No member of society has the right to teach any doctrine contrary to what society holds to be true.”
“When any calamity has been suffered, the first thing to be remembered is how much has been escaped.”
“If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.”
“He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.”
“No two men can be half an hour together but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.”
“Ah! Sir, a boy's being flogged is not so severe as a man's having the hiss of the world against him.”
“I know not, Madam, that you have a right, upon moral principles, to make your readers suffer so much.”
“His scorn of the great is repeated too often to be real; no man thinks much of that which he despises.”
“Their learning is like bread in a besieged town: every man gets a little, but no man gets a full meal.”
“Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.”
“The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effrontery.”
“We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.”
“Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.”
“The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.”
“Sir, a man who cannot get to heaven in a green coat, will not find his way thither the sooner in a gray one.”
“Read your own compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.”
“A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.”
“Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him.”
“I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an attorney.”
“Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.”
“Count on it, if a person talks of their misfortune, there is something in it that is not disagreeable to them.”
“Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to be quite true.”
“Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it.”
“He that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly become corrupt.”
“Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.”
“Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him.”
“Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.”
“If I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many things to please him.”