Shakespeare, Butler and Bacon have rendered it extremely difficult for all who come after them to be sublime, witty or profound.

It is with disease of the mind, as with those of the body; we are half dead before we understand our disorder, and half cured when we do.

As no roads are so rough as those that have just been mended, so no sinners are so intolerant as those that have just turned saints.

There is this of good in real evils; they deliver us, while they last, from the petty despotism of all that were imaginary.

It is more easy to forgive the weak who have injured us than the powerful whom we have injured.

Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness when bequeathed by those who, even alive, would part with nothing.

It is a mortifying truth, and ought to teach the wisest of us humility, that many of the most valuable discoveries have been the result of chance rather than of contemplation, and of accident rather than of design.