Take back the beauty and wit you bestow upon me; leave me my own mediocrity of agreeableness and genius, but leave me also my sincerity, my constancy, and my plain dealing; 'Tis all I have to recommend me to the esteem either of others or myself.

people never write calmly but when they write indifferently.

I am afraid we are little better than straws upon the water; we may flatter ourselves that we swim, when the current carries us along.

Philosophy is the toil which can never tire persons engaged in it. All ways are strewn with roses, and the farther you go, the more enchanting objects appear before you and invite you on.

Copiousness of words, however ranged, is always false eloquence, though it will ever impose on some sort of understandings.

It has all been most interesting.

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