Peaceable times are the best to live in, though not so proper to furnish materials for a writer.

Allegories, when well chosen, are like so many tracks of light in a discourse, that make everything about them clear and beautiful.

As addictions go, reading is among the cleanest, easiest to feed, happiest.

A man with great talents, but void of discretion, is like Polyphemus in the fable, strong and blind, endued with an irresistible force, which for want of sight is of no use to him.

I believe that everyone, some time or other, dreams that he is reading papers, books, or letters; in which case the invention prompts so readily that the mind is imposed upon, and mistakes its own suggestions for the composition of another.

That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?

The religious man fears, the man of honor scorns, to do an ill action.