My health is so often impaired that I begin to be as weary of it as mending old lace; when it is patched in one place, it breaks out in another.

There is no remedy so easy as books, which if they do not give cheerfulness, at least restore quiet to the most troubled mind.

My dear Smollett ... disgraces his talent by writing those stupid romances called history.

Gardening is certainly the next amusement to reading.

There can be no situation in life in which the conversation of my dear sister will not administer some comfort to me.

Civility cost nothing.

True knowledge consists in knowing things, not words.