A man by tumbling his thoughts, and forming them into expressions, gives them a new fermentation, which works them into a finer body.

Of all sorts of flattery, that which comes from a solemn character and stands before a sermon is the worst-complexioned. Such commendation is a satire upon the author, makes the text look mercenary, and disables the discourse from doing service.

There are few things reason can discover with so much certainty and ease as its own insufficiency.

Without discretion, people may be overlaid with unreasonable affection, and choked with too much nourishment.

A man by tumbling his thoughts, and forming them into expressions, gives them a new fermentation, which works them into a finer body.

A man may as well expect to grow stronger by always eating as wiser by always reading.

Not that the moderns are born with more wit than their predecessors, but, finding the world better furnished at their coming into it, they have more leisure for new thoughts, more light to direct them, and more hints to work upon.