True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.

Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness he that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly be corrupt.

Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health and is as friendly to the mind as to the body.

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.

If we hope for what we are not likely to possess, we act and think in vain, and make life a greater dream and shadow than it really is.

Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed.

The utmost extent of man's knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing.

Irregularity and want of method are only supportable in men of great learning or genius, who are often too full to be exact, and therefore they choose to throw down their pearls in heaps before the reader, rather than be at the pains of stringing them.

No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.