The volumes of antiquity, like medals, may very well serve to amuse the curious, but the works of the moderns, like the current coin of a kingdom, are much better for immediate use.

Whatever be the motives which induce men to write,--whether avarice or fame,--the country becomes more wise and happy in which they most serve for instructors.

Honour sinks where commerce long prevails.

If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.

If we look round the world, there seem to be not above six distinct varieties in the human species, each of which is strongly marked, and speaks the kind seldom to have mixed with any other. But there is nothing in the shape, nothing in the faculties, that shows their coming from different originals; and the varieties of climate, of nourishment, and custom, are sufficient to produce every change.

Aromatic plants bestow no spicy fragrance while they grow; but crush'd or trodden to the ground, diffuse their balmy sweets around.

Taste is the power of relishing or rejecting whatever is offered for the entertainment of the imagination.