Education is a companion which no misfortune can depress, no crime can destroy, no enemy can alienate, no despotism can enslave. At home, a friend, abroad, an introduction, in solitude a solace and in society an ornament. It chastens vice, it guides virtue, it gives at once grace and government to genius. Without it, what is man? A splendid slave, a reasoning savage.

But in all despotic governments, though a particular prince may favour arts and letter, there is a natural degeneracy of mankind.

Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.

Better to die ten thousand deaths, Than wound my honour.

The schoolboy counts the time till the return of the holidays; the minor longs to be of age; the lover is impatient till he is married.

There is nothing in which men more deceive themselves than in what they call zeal.

Exercise ferments the humors, casts them into their proper channels, throws off redundancies, and helps nature in those secret distributions, without which the body cannot subsist in its vigor, nor the soul act with cheerfulness.