The faults of a man loved or honoured sometimes steal secretly and imperceptibly upon the wise and virtuous, but by injudicious fondness or thoughtless vanity are adopted with design.
The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately formed and diligently planted, varied with shades, and scented with flowers.
All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance.
No one will persist long in helping someone who will not help themselves.
Some claim a place in the list of patriots, by an acrimonious and unremitting opposition to the court. This mark is by no means infallible. Patriotism is not necessarily included in rebellion. A man may hate his king, yet not love his country.
He that wishes to see his country robbed of its rights cannot be a patriot.
A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.
Let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is not known. Don’t let him go to the devil, where he is known.
Men become friends by a community of pleasures.
You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables.
It may be laid down as a position which seldom deceives, that when a man cannot bear his own company, there is something wrong.
The world is not yet exhausted: let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.
Politeness is one of those advantages which we never estimate rightly but by the inconvenience of its loss.
Sir, I think all Christians, whether Papists or Protestants, agree in the essential articles, and that their differences are trivial, and rather political than religious.
It is commonly a weak man who marries for love.
If we estimate dignity by immediate usefulness, agriculture is undoubtedly the first and noblest science.
Studious to please, yet not ashamed to fail.
We are told, that the black bear is innocent; but I should not like to trust myself with him.
The first step to greatness is to be honest.
To talk in public, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to inquire and answer inquiries, is the business of the scholar.