The happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.
Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.
The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne.
He who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.
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.
Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed.
To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed.
Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?
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.
Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content.
No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
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.
He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.
Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and... the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.
When any calamity has been suffered the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped.
Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound: great debts are like cannon; of loud noise, but little danger.
My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.
There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well as at a capital tavern... No, Sir; there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.
It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.
The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.
