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

Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.

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

The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

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.

To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.

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

Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.

Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

What is easy is seldom excellent.

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.

Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions.

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.

The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne.

The future is purchased by the present.

Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.

The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

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 true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

Exercise is labor without weariness.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.

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

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.

Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.

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

I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.

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.

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.

The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.

If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.

He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.