A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.

The great subverter of Pyrrhonism or the excessive principles of scepticism is action, and employment, and the occupations of common life.

Men are much oftener thrown on their knees by the melancholy than by the agreeable passions.

Manufacturers...gradually shift their places, leaving those countries and provinces which they have already enriched, and flying to others, whether they are allured by the cheapness of provisions and labour.

There is only one vice, which may be found in life with as strong features, and as high a colouring as needs be employed by any satyrist or comic poet; and that is AVARICE.

The sweetest path of life leads through the avenues of learning, and whoever can open up the way for another, ought, so far, to be esteemed a benefactor to mankind.

To be a philosophical sceptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential to being a sound, believing Christian.