A faint endeavor ends in a sure defeat.

Idleness among children, as among men, is the root of all evil, and leads to no other evil more certain than ill temper.

In men this blunder still you find; all think their little set mankind.

The wretch who digs the mine for bread, or ploughs, that others may be fed, feels less fatigued than that decreed to him who cannot think or read.

My retirement was now become solitude; the former is, I believe, the best state for the mind of man, the latter almost the worst. In complete solitude, the eye wants objects, the heart wants attachments, the understanding wants reciprocation. The character loses its tenderness when it has nothing to strengthen it, its sweetness when it has nothing to soothe it.

The misfortune is, that religious learning is too often rather considered as an act of the memory than of the heart and affections; as a dry duty, rather than a lively pleasure.

Pleasure is by much the most laborious trade I know, especially for those who have not a vocation to it.