Our Grub-street biographers watch for the death of a great man like so many undertakers on purpose to make a penny of him.

The memory is perpetually looking back when we have nothing present to entertain us. It is like those repositories in animals that are filled with food, on which they may ruminate when their present pastures fail.

Sir Francis Bacon observed that a well-written book, compared with its rivals and antagonists, is like Moses' serpent, that immediately swallowed up and devoured those of the Egyptians.

There is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol.

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.

Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body. As by the one, health is preserved, strengthened, and invigorated: by the other, virtue (which is the health of the mind) is kept alive, cherished, and confirmed.

Whether dark presages of the night proceed from any latent power of the soul during her abstraction, or from any operation of subordinate spirits, has been a dispute.