All the poets are indebted more or less to those who have gone before them; even Homer's originality has been questioned, and Virgil owes almost as much to Theocritus, in his Pastorals, as to Homer, in his Heroics; and if our own countryman, Milton, has soared above both Homer and Virgil, it is because he has stolen some feathers from their wings.

Public charities and benevolent associations for the gratuitous relief of every species of distress, are peculiar to Christianity; no other system of civil or religious policy has originated them; they form its highest praise and characteristic feature.

Strong as our passions are, they may be starved into submission, and conquered without being killed.

Never join with your friend when he abuses his horse or his wife, unless the one is about to be sold, the other to be buried.

I'm aiming by the time I'm fifty to stop being an adolescent.

Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.

A leveller has long ago been set down as a ridiculous and chimerical being, who, if he could finish his work to-day, would have to begin it again tomorrow.