The very first discovery of beauty strikes the mind with an inward joy, and spreads a cheerfulness and delight through all its faculties.

An honest man, that is not quite sober, has nothing to fear.

A true critic ought to dwell upon excellencies rather than imperfections, to discover the concealed beauties of a writer, and communicate to the world such things as are worth their observation.

It is pleasant to see a notorious profligate seized with a concern for religion, and converting his spleen into zeal.

What can be nobler than the idea it gives us of the Supreme Being?

A person may be qualified to do greater good to mankind and become more beneficial to the world, by morality without faith than by faith without morality.

When I behold a fashionable table set out in all its magnificence, I fancy that I see gouts and dropsies, fevers and lethargies, with other innumerable distempers lying in ambuscade among the dishes. Nature delights in the most plain and simple diet. Every animal but man keeps to one dish. Herbs are the food of this species, fish of that, and flesh of a third. Man falls upon everything that comes in his way; not the smallest fruit or excrescence of the earth, scarce a berry or a mushroom can escape him.