His death eclipsed the gayety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure.
An author places himself uncalled before the tribunal of criticism and solicits fame at the hazard of disgrace.
Was ever poet so trusted before?
The roads of science are narrow, so that they who travel them, must wither follow or meet one another...
Madam, before you flatter a man so grossly to his face, you should consider whether or not your flattery is worth his having.
An Englishman is content to say nothing when he has nothing to say.
When two Eglishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather.
Much is due to those who first broke the way to knowledge, and left only to their successors the task of smoothing it.
Other things may be seized by might, or purchased with money, but knowledge is to be gained only by study, and study to be prosecuted only in retirement.
The number of such as live without the ardour of inquiry is very small, though many content themselves with cheap amusements, and waste their lives in researches of no importance.
The specualtist, who is not content with superficial views, harasses himself with fruitless curiosity; and still, as he inquires more, perceives only that he knows less.
It may be observed in general that the future is purchased by the present. It is not possible to secure distant or permanent happiness but by the forbearance of some immediate gratification.
Wretched un-idea’d girls.
When people find a man of the most distinguished abilities as a writer their inferior while he is with them, it must be highly gratifying to them.
It is better a man should be abused than forgotten.
The accidental prescriptions of authority, when time has procured them veneration, are often confounded with the laws of nature, and those rules are supposed coeval with reason, of which the first rise cannot be discovered.
Reason will by degrees submit to absurdity, as the eye is in time accommodated to darkness.
Accustom your children constantly to this; if a thing happened at one window and they, when relating it, say that it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check them; you do not know where deviation from truth will end.
Study requires solitude, and solitude is a state dangerous to those who are too much accustomed to sink into themselves.
Admiration begins where acquaintance ceases.