“Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves.”

Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.

With disadvantages enough to bring him to humility, a Scotsman is one of the proudest things alive.

The company of fools may first make us smile, but in the end we always feel melancholy.

Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues.

If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.

On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting, ‘Twas only when he was off, he was acting.

The hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowded with fruition.

They say women and music should never be dated.

Hope is such a bait, it covers any hook.

A man who leaves home to mend himself and others is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is a vagabond.

Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.

I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well.

There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue.

As writers become more numerous, it is natural for readers to become more indolent; whence must necessarily arise a desire of attaining knowledge with the greatest possible ease.

Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain, With grammar, and nonsense, and learning, Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives genius a better discerning.

Tenderness is a virtue.