Many infidels have maintained that Ignorance is the mother of Devotion.

All censure of a man's self is oblique praise.

It is not every man who can be exquisitely miserable, any more than exquisitely happy.

I went to my father's at night. He spoke of poor John [Boswell's brother] with disgust. I was shocked and said, "He's your son, and God made him." He answered very harshly, "If my sons are idiots, can I help it?

I am now to offer some thoughts upon that sameness or familiarity which we frequently find between passages in different authors without quotation. This may be one of three things either what is called Plagiarism, or Imitation, or Coincidence.

When a man is familiar with many people he must expect many disagreeable familiarizations.

In an orchard there should be enough to eat, enough to lay up, enough to be stolen, and enough to rot on the ground.