I was surprised just now at seeing a cobweb around a knocker; for it was not on the door of heaven.

Who is fit to govern others? He who governs himself. You might as well have said: nobody.

We like slipping, but not falling; our real anxiety is to be tempted enough.

In the moment of our creation we receive the stamp of our individuality; and much of life is spent in rubbing off or defacing the impression.

Histories used often to be stories: the fashion now is to leave out the story. Our histories are stall-fed: the facts are absorbed by the reflexions, as the meat is sometimes by the fat.

Few are aware that they want any thing, except pounds schillings and pence.

They who boast of their tolerance merely give others leave to be as careless about religion as they are themselves. A walrus might as well pride itself on its endurance of cold.