The best time to frame an answer to the letters of a friend, is the moment you receive them. Then the warmth of friendship, and the intelligence received, most forcibly cooperate.
— William Shenstone
Laws are generally found to be nets of such a texture, as the little creep through, the great break through, and the middle-sized are alone entangled in it.
Jealousy is the fear or apprehension of superiority: envy our uneasiness under it.
The world may be divided into people that read, people that write, people that think, and fox-hunters.
The regard one shows economy, is like that we show an old aunt who is to leave us something at last.
A miser grows rich by seeming poor; an extravagant man grows poor by seeming rich.
Poetry and consumption are the most flattering of diseases.
The eye must be easy, before it can be pleased.
Grandeur and beauty are so very opposite, that you often diminish the one as you increase the other. Variety is most akin to the latter, simplicity to the former.
Hope is a flatterer, but the most upright of all parasites; for she frequents the poor man's hut, as well as the palace of his superior.
His knowledge of books had in some degree diminished his knowledge of the world.
Every single instance of a friend's insincerity increases our dependence on the efficacy of money.
A man has generally the good or ill qualities, which he attributes to mankind.
Second thoughts oftentimes are the very worst of all thoughts.
Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed.
Anger is a great force. If you control it, it can be transmuted into a power which can move the whole world.
The lines of poetry, the period of prose, and even the texts of Scripture most frequently recollected and quoted, are those which are felt to be preeminently musical.
Every good poet includes a critic, but the reverse is not true.
There is nothing more universally commended than a fine day; the reason is that people can commend it without envy.
A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood.
Zealous men are ever displaying to you the strength of their belief, while judicious men are showing you the grounds of it.
What leads to unhappiness, is making pleasure the chief aim.
A fool and his words are soon parted.
The proper means of increasing the love we bear our native country is to reside some time in a foreign one.
