Who has begun has half done. Have the courage to be wise. Begin!

Cunning is neither the consequence of sense, nor does it give sense. A proof that it is not sense, is that cunning people never imagine that others can see through them. It is the consequence of weakness.

Without grace no book can live, and with it the poorest may have its life prolonged.

The sure way of judging whether our first thoughts are judicious, is to sleep on them. If they appear of the same force the next morning as they did over night, and if good nature ratifies what good sense approves, we may be pretty sure we are in the right.

It amazes me when I hear any person prefer blindness to deafness. Such a person must have a terrible dread of being alone. Blindness makes one totally dependent on others, and deprives us of every satisfaction that results from light.

Shakespeare, with an improved education and in a more enlightened age, might easily have attained the purity and correction of Racine; but nothing leads one to suppose that Racine in a barbarous age would have attained the grandeur, force and nature of Shakespeare.

Had I children, my utmost endeavors would be to make them musicians.