Among those evils which befall us, there are many which have been more painful to us in the prospect than by their actual pressure.

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

There is nobody so weak of invention that cannot make some little stories to villify his enemy.

Learning, like traveling and all other methods of improvement, as it finishes good sense, so it makes a silly man ten thousand times more insufferable by supplying variety of matter to his impertinence, and giving him an opportunity of abounding in absurdities.

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

Our delight in any particular study, art, or science rises and improves in proportion to the application which we bestow upon it. Thus, what was at first an exercise becomes at length an entertainment.

It is folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution.