The most accomplished way of using books is to serve them as some people do lords; learn their titles and then brag of their acquaintance.

People who drink too much, health, and greedy. Hoard a treasure we do not like.

Upon looking back from the end of the last chapter and surveying the texture of what has been wrote, it is necessary, that upon this page and the five following, a good quantity of heterogeneous matter be inserted, to keep up that just balance betwixt wisdom and folly, without which a book would not hold together a single year.

To write a book is for all the world like humming a song—be but in tune with yourself, madam, 'tis no matter how high or how low you take it.

There are some tempers--how shall I describe them--formed either of such impenetrable matter, or wrought up by habitual selfishness to such an utter insensibility of what becomes of the fortunes of their fellow-creatures, as if they were not partakers of the same nature, or had no lot or connection at all with the species.

Patience cannot remove, but it can always dignify and alleviate, misfortune.

Sciences may be learned by rote, but wisdom not.