A great large book is a great evil.

When men are easy in their circumstances, they are naturally enemies to innovations.

To look upon the soul as going on from strength to strength, to consider that she is to shine forever with new accessions of glory, and brighten to all eternity; that she will be still adding virtue to virtue, and knowledge to knowledge,--carries in it something wonderfully agreeable to that ambition which is natural to the mind of man.

I think I may define taste to be that faculty of the soul which discerns the beauties of an author with pleasure, and the imperfections with dislike.

If our zeal were true and genuine we should be much more angry with a sinner than a heretic.

Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.

If we hope for what we are not likely to possess, we act and think in vain, and make life a greater dream and shadow than it really is.