Every man prefers virtue, when there is not some strong incitement to transgress its precepts.

It is better to live rich than to die rich.

Wickedness is always easier than virtue, for it takes the short cut to everything.

When female minds are embittered by age or solitude, their malignity is generally exerted in a rigorous and spiteful superintendence of domestic trifles.

A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it.

No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

Most vices may be committed very genteelly: a man may debauch his friend's wife genteelly: he may cheat at cards genteelly

Age looks with anger on the temerity of youth, and youth with contempt on the scrupulosity of age.

He that would pass the latter part of life with honour and decency must, when he is young, consider that he shall one day be old; and remember, when he is old, that he has once been young.