Can we ring the bells backward? Can we unlearn the arts that pretend to civilize, and then burn the world? There is a march of science; but who shall beat the drums for its retreat?

Pain is life - the sharper, the more evidence of life.

I'd like to grow very old as slowly as possible.

So near are the boundaries of panegyric and invective, that a worn-out sinner is sometimes found to make the best declaimer against sin. The same high-seasoned descriptions which in his unregenerate state served to inflame his appetites, in his new province of a moralist will serve him (a little turned) to expose the enormity of those appetites in other men.

I have been trying all my life to like Scotchmen, and am obliged to desist from the experiment in despair.

A clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigour of the game.

It is good to have friends at court.