But as Nature is the best guide, teaching must be the development of natural inclinations, for which purpose the teacher must watch his pupil and listen to him, not continually bawl words into his ears as if pouring water into a funnel. Good teaching will come from a mind well made rather than well filled.

I consider myself an average man, except in the fact that I consider myself an average man.

I am much afraid that we shall have very greatly hastened the decline and ruin of the New World by our contagion, and that we willhave sold it our opinions and our arts very dear.

Every day I hear stupid people say things that are not stupid.

O human creature,you are the investigator without knowledge, the magistrate without jurisdiction, and all in all, the fool of the farce.

Things seem greater by imagination than they are in effect.

There is no passion so much transports the sincerity of judgment as doth anger