A true critic, in the perusal of a book, is like a dog at a feast, whose thoughts and stomach are wholly set upon what the guests fling away, and consequently is apt to snarl most when there are the fewest bones.

I always love to begin a journey on Sundays, because I shall have the prayers of the church to preserve all that travel by land, or water.

Observation is an old man's memory.

Small causes are sufficient to make a man uneasy, when great ones are not in the way: for want of a block he will stumble at a straw.

Pedantry is properly the over-rating of any kind of knowledge we pretend to.

Patience alleviates, as impatience augments, pain; thus persons of strong will suffer less than those who give way to irritation.

A secret is seldom safe in more than one breast.