A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.

I am disgusted with innovation, in whatever guise, and with reason, for I have seen very harmful effects of it.

Live as long as you please, you will strike nothing off the time you will have to spend dead.

Books are pleasant, but if by being over-studious we impair our health and spoil our good humour, two of the best things we have, let us give it over. I, for my part, am one of those who think no fruit derived from them can recompense so great a loss.

Disappointment and feebleness imprint upon us a cowardly and valetudinarian virtue.

It is putting a very high price on one's conjectures to have someone roasted alive on their account.

To divert myself from a troublesome fancy, it is but to run to my books; they presently fix me to them, and drive the other out of my thoughts, and do not mutiny to see that I have only recourse to them for want of other more, real, natural, and lively conveniences; they always receive me with the same kindness.