I do not admire politicians; but when they are excellent in their way, one cannot help allowing them their due.

In science, mistakes always precede the truth

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.

[French] authors are more afraid of offending delicacy and rules, than ambitious of sublimity.

Letters to absence can a voice impart, And lend a tongue when distance gags the heart.

Dr. Calder [a Unitarian minister] said of Dr. [Samuel] Johnson on the publications of Boswell and Mrs. Piozzi, that he was like Actaeon, torn to pieces by his own pack.

Lord Bath used to say of women, who are apt to say that they will follow their own judgment, that they could not follow a worse guide.