I despair of ever receiving the same degree of pleasure from the most exalted performances of genius which I felt in childhood from pieces which my present judgment regards as trifling and contemptible.

Surely the church is a place where one day's truce ought to be allowed to the dissensions and animosities of mankind.

Ambition can creep as well as soar.

Curiosity is the most superficial of all the affections; it changes its object perpetually; it has an appetite which is very sharp, but very easily satisfied, and it has always an appearance of giddiness, restlessness and anxiety.

History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn.

Religion, to have any force upon men's understandings,--indeed, to exist at all,--must be supposed paramount to law, and independent for its substance upon any human institution, else it would be the absurdest thing in the world,--an acknowledged cheat.

Evils we have had continually calling for reformation, and reformations more grievous than any evils.