Sensibility would be a good portress if she had but one hand; with her right she opens the door to pleasure, but with her left to pain.

A thorough-paced antiquary not only remembers what all other people have thought proper to forget, but he also forgets what all other people think is proper to remember.

The three great apostles of practical atheism, that make converts without persecuting, and retain them without preaching, are wealth, health and power.

Extemporaneous and oral harangues will always have this advantage over those that are read from a in manuscript: every burst of eloquence or spark of genius they may contain, however studied they may have been beforehand, will appear to the audience to be the effect of the sudden inspiration of talent.

Of all the faculties of the mind, memory is the first that flourishes, and the first that dies.

There are some who affect a want of affectation, and flatter themselves that they are above flattery; they are proud of being thought extremely humble, and would go round the world to punish those who thought them capable of revenge; they are so satisfied of the suavity of their own temper that they would quarrel with their dearest benefactor only for doubting it.

The study of mathematics, like the Nile, begins in minuteness but ends in magnificence.