This single Stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected Corner, I once knew in a flourishing State in a Forest: It was full of Sap, full of Leaves, and full of Boughs: But now, in vain does the busy Art of Man pretend to vie with Nature, by tying that withered Bundle of Twigs to its sapless Trunk: It is at best but the Reverse of what it was; a Tree turned upside down, the Branches on the Earth, and the Root in the Air.

It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.

A college joke to cure the dumps.

Arbitrary power is but the first natural step from anarchy, or the savage life.

Brisk talkers are generally slow thinkers.

He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put into vials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers.

Invention is the talent of youth, as judgment is of age.