What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.

Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.

Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.