When a man is made a spiritual peer he loses his surname; when a temporal, his Christian name.

Nothing more unqualified the man to act with prudence than a misfortune that is attended with shame and guilt.

The motives of the best actions will not bear too strict an inquiry. It is allowed that the cause of most actions, good or bad, may be resolved into the love of ourselves; but the self-love of some men inclines them to please others, and the self-love of others is wholly employed in pleasing themselves. This makes the great distinction between virtue and vice.

He that calls a man ungrateful sums up all the veil that a man can be guilty of.

There never appear more than five or six men of genius in an age, but if they were united the world could not stand before them.

If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the merriest countenances in mourning coaches.

Men who possess all the advantages of life are in a state where there are many accidents to disorder and discompose, but few to please them.

If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning etc., beginning from his youth, and so go to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last.

When a man of genius appears in the world, it is immediately recognized by the fact that all the blockheads join forces against him.