The greatest Inventions were produced in Times of Ignorance; as the Use of the Compass, Gunpowder, and Printing; and by the dullest Nation, as the Germans.

It is not so much the being exempt from faults as the having overcome them that is an advantage to us; it being with the follies of the mind as with weeds of a field, which if destroyed and consumed upon the place where they grow, enrich and improve it more than if none had ever sprung there.

The worthiest people are the most injured by slander, as is the best fruit which the birds have been pecking at.

It is remarkable with what Christian fortitude and resignation we can bear the suffering of other folks.

The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.

Complaint is the largest tribute heaven receives and the sincerest part of our devotion.

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.