A friend exaggerates a man's virtues; an enemy inflames his crimes.

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

Mankind are more indebted to industry than ingenuity; the gods set up their favors at a price, and industry is the purchaser.

A good disposition is more valuable than gold, for the latter is the gift of fortune, but the former is the dower of nature.

I... recommend to every one of my Readers, the keeping a Journal of their Lives for one Week, and setting down punctually their whole Series of Employments during that Space of Time. This kind of Self-Examination would give them a true State of themselves, and incline them to consider seriously what they are about. One Day would rectifie the Omissions of another, and make a Man weigh all those indifferent Actions, which, though they are easily forgotten, must certainly be accounted for.

The first race of mankind used to dispute, as our ordinary people do now-a-days, in a kind of wild logic, uncultivated by rule of art.

The greatest parts, without discretion as observed by an elegant writer, may be fatal to their owner; as Polyphemus, deprived of his eyes, was only the more exposed on account of his enormous strength and stature.