“The constant desire of pleasing which is the peculiar quality of some, may be called the happiest of all desires in this that it rarely fails of attaining its end when not disgraced by affectation.”

O innocence, how glorious and happy a portion art thou to the breast that possesses thee! thou fearest neither the eyes nor the tongues of men. Truth, the most powerful of all things, is thy strongest friend; and the brighter the light is in which thou art displayed, the more it discovers thy transcendent beauties.

Nothing more aggravates ill success than the near approach of good.

Some virtuous women are too liberal in their insults to a frail sister; but virtue can support itself without borrowing any assistance from the vices of other women.

All nature wears one universal grin.

Good writers will, indeed, do well to imitate the ingenious traveller, who always proportions his stay in any place.

There is scarcely any man, how much soever he may despise the character of a flatterer, but will condescend in the meanest manner to flatter himself.

Life may as properly be called an art as any other.

Let no man be sorry he has done good, because others have done evil.

A rich man without charity is a rogue; and perhaps it would be no difficult matter to prove that he is also a fool.

There is nothing so useful to man in general, nor so beneficial to particular societies and individuals, as trade. This is that alma mater, at whose plentiful breast all mankind are nourished.

Success is a fruit of slow growth.

Now in reality, the world has paid too great a compliment to critics, and has imagined them to be men of much greater profundity than they really are.

A beau is everything of a woman but the sex, and nothing of a man beside it.

Adversity is the trial of principle. Without it, a man hardly knows whether he is honest or not.

Never trust the man who has reason to suspect that you know he hath injured you.

What is commonly called love, namely the desire of satisfying a voracious appetite with a certain quantity of delicate white human flesh.

I have indeed – praise be to God – attained my desire in this world, which was to travel through the earth, and i have attained in this respect what no other person has attained to my knowledge.

There’s a desire in me to express something – to match what I hear in my head.

For once I want to be something that lasts.

Free is a man who has no desires.

What we are and what we possess is but a loan- and that not for long! Do not clutch what has been given to you, for joy and desire to possess are but nails fastening you to the perishable world.

My desire for connection is stronger than my desire for perfection.

True devotion is for itself: not to desire heaven nor to fear hell.

Even if we all want you here, you don’t belong until you decide you do.