Whatever the poets pretend, it is plain they give immortality to none but themselves; it is Homer and Virgil we reverence and admire, not Achilles or Aeneas. With historians it is quite the contrary; our thoughts are taken up with the actions, persons, and events we read, and we little regard the authors.

Some men, under the notion of weeding out prejudice, eradicate virtue, honesty and religion.

There seems to be no part of knowledge in fewer hands than that of discerning when to have done.

If the men of wit and genius would resolve never to complain in their works of critics and detractors, the next age would not know that they ever had any.

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.

Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.

We of this age have discovered a shorter, and more prudent method to become scholars and wits, without the fatigue of reading or of thinking.