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.

A reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure until he knows whether the writer of it be a black man or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor.

The hours of a wise man are lengthened by his ideas.

I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.

By anticipation we sugar misery and enjoy happiness before they are in being. We can set the sun and stars forward, or lose sight of them by wandering into those retired parts of eternity when the heavens and earth shall be no more.

The Mind that lies fallow but a single Day, sprouts up in Follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous Culture.

A man that has a taste of music, painting, or architecture, is like one that has another sense, when compared with such as have no relish of those arts