"Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, and sign your will before you sup from home."

"An Italian philosopher said that "time was his estate" an estate indeed which will produce nothing without cultivation but will always abundantly repay the labors of industry and generally satisfy the most extensive desires if no part of it be suffered to lie in waste by negligence to be overrun with noxious plants or laid out for show rather than for use."

"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."

"That we must all die, we always knew; I wish I had remembered it sooner."

"He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade."

"Claret is the liquor for boys port for men but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy."

"Where grief is fresh, any attempt to divert it only irritates."

"I can discover within me no power of perception which is not glutted with its proper pleasure, yet I do not feel myself delighted. Man has surely some latent sense for which this place affords no gratification, or he has some desires distinct from sense which must be satisfied before he can be happy."

"I know not why any one but a schoolboy in his declamation should whine over the Commonwealth of Rome, which grew great only by the misery of the rest of mankind. The Romans, like others, as soon as they grew rich, grew corrupt; and in their corruption sold the lives and freedoms of themselves, and of one another."

"If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair."

"Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true."

"The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to remove."

"Much may be made of a Scotchman if he be caught young."

"It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it, though we know it can never be reached."

"No weakness of the human mind has more frequently incurred animadversion, than the negligence with which men overlook their own faults, however flagrant, and the easiness with which they pardon them, however frequently repeated."

"All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it."

"We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting."

"Life is short. The sooner that a man begins to enjoy his wealth the better."

"Never speak of a man in his own presence. It is always indelicate and may be offensive ."

"A lexicographer a writer of dictionaries a harmless drudge."

"Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven't courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others."

"Let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich."

"There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain."

"A man sometimes starts up a patriot, only by disseminating discontent, and propagating reports of secret influence, of dangerous counsels, of violated rights, and encroaching usurpation. This practice is no certain note of patriotism. To instigate the populace with rage beyond the provocation, is to suspend public happiness, if not to destroy it. He is no lover of his country, that unnecessarily disturbs its peace."

"When any fit of gloominess or perversion of mind lays hold upon you make it a rule not to publish it by complaints."

"The life of a conscientious clergyman is not easy. I have always considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he is able to maintain. I would rather have chancery suits upon my hands than the cure of souls."

"I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read."

"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."

"I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him you have no business with consequences you are to tell the truth."

"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."

"The present time is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment and we are forced to supply its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation."

"Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure."

"Friendship is a union of spirits a marriage of hearts and the bond there of virtue."

"Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult."

"The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity."

"Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment."

"The applause of a single human being is of great consequence."

"If the changes that we fear be thus irresistible, what remains but to acquiesce with silence, as in the other insurmountable distresses of humanity? It remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that we palliate what we cannot cure. Life may be lengthened by care, though death cannot be ultimately defeated: tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration; we have long preserved our constitution, let us make some struggles for our language."

"I live in the crowds of jollity not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself."

"It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world."

"There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern."

"When an author is yet living we estimate his powers by his worst performance and when he is dead we rate them by his best."

"You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."

"Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty sickness and captivity would without this comfort be insupportable."

"There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money."

"The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken."

"Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not."

"The first years of man must make provision for the last."

"Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy."

"None are happy but by the anticipation of change. The change itself is nothing when we have made it the next wish is to change again."