The end of pleasure is to support the offices of life, to relieve the fatigues of business, to reward a regular action, and to encourage the continuance.

Perpetual pushing and assurance put a difficulty out of countenance and make a seeming difficulty gives way.

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

I would not despair unless I knew the irrevocable decree was passed; saw my misfortune recorded in the book of fate, and signed and sealed by neces-sity.

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.

Books are a guide in youth, and an entertainment for age. They support us under solitude, and keep us from being a burden to ourselves. They help us to forget the crossness of men and things, compose our cares and our passions, and lay our disappointments asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride or design in their conversation.

The abuse of a thing is no argument against the use of it.