Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.

It is folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of ;antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution.

A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart, and his next to escape the censures of the world.

Prejudice and self-sufficiency naturally proceed from inexperience of the world, and ignorance of mankind.

To be exempt from the passions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing solitude.

Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought.

Men may change their climate, but they cannot change their nature. A man that goes out a fool cannot ride or sail himself into common sense.

There is nothing more requisite in business than dispatch.

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

Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.