I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.
Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor.
No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.
Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed.
Words are but the signs of ideas.
Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.
Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.
A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.
The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity... The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
Those who attain any excellence, commonly spend life in one pursuit; for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.
Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.
There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either.
That we must all die, we always knew; I wish I had remembered it sooner.
No man was ever great by imitation.
Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.
Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.
There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.
One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.
What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was proved true before, prove false again? Two hundred more.
The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.
I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's virtues the means of deceiving him.
The wretched have no compassion, they can do good only from strong principles of duty.
The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.
