The Identity That We Ascribe To Things

Though Men Of Delicate Taste Be Rare, They Are Easily To Be Distinguished In Society By The Soundness Of Their Understanding, And The Superiority Of Their Faculties Above The Rest Of Mankind.

Riches Are Valuable At All Times, And To All Men, Because They Always Purchase Pleasures Such As Men Are Accustomed To And Desire; Nor Can Anything Restrain Or Regulate The Love Of Money But A Sense Of Honor And Virtue, Which, If It Be Not Nearly Equal At All Times, Will Naturally Abound Most In Ages Of Knowledge And Refinement.

It Is A Certain Rule That Wit And Passion Are Entirely Incompatible. When The Affections Are Moved, There Is No Place For The Imagination.

When We Reflect On The Shortness And Uncertainty Of Life, How Despicable Seem All Our Pursuits Of Happiness.

Were A Stranger To Drop On A Sudden Into This World, I Would Show Him, As A Specimen Of Its Ills, A Hospital Full Of Diseases, A Prison Crowded With Malefactors And Debtors, A Field Of Battle Strewed With Carcasses, A Fleet Foundering In The Ocean, A Nation Languishing Under Tyranny, Famine, Or Pestilence. To Turn The Gay Side Of Life To Him, And Give Him A Notion Of Its Pleasures; Whither Should I Conduct Him? To A Ball, To An Opera, To Court? He Might Justly Think, That I Was Only Showing Him A Diversity Of Distress And Sorrow.