'Tis Liberty that crowns Britannia's isle, and makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile... 'Tis Britain's care to watch o'er Europe's fate, and hold in balance each contending state, To threaten bold presumptuous kings with war, and answer her afflicted neighbours' prayer... Soon as her fleets appear their terrors cease.

Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity.

Even the greatest actions of a celebrated person labor under this disadvantage, that however surprising and extraordinary they may be, they are no more than what are expected from him.

I have often reflected within myself on this unaccountable humor in womankind of being smitten with everything that is showy and superficial, and on the numberless evils that befall the sex from this light fantastical disposition.

Our Grub-street biographers watch for the death of a great man like so many undertakers on purpose to make a penny of him.

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.

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