In England we see people lulled sleep with solid and elaborate discourses of piety, who would be warmed and transported out of themselves by the bellowings and distortions of enthusiasm.

It is not the business of virtue to extirpate the affections of the mind, but to regulate them.

To this end, nothing is to be more carefully consulted than plainness. In a lady's attire this is the single excellence; for to be what some people call fine, is the same vice, in that case, as to be florid is in writing or speaking.

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.

Pedantry in learning is like hypocrisy inn religion--a form of knowledge without the power of it.

A fine coat is but a livery when the person who wears it discovers no higher sense than that of a footman.

There is nothing which one regards so much with an eye of mirth and pity as innocence when it has in it a dash of folly.