With disadvantages enough to bring him to humility, a Scotsman is one of the proudest things alive.

As for disappointing them I should not so much mind; but I can't abide to disappoint myself.

All that philosophy can teach is to be stubborn or sullen under misfortunes.

I can't say whether we had more wit among us now than usual, but I am certain we had more laughing, which answered the end as well.

I fancy the character of a poet is in every country the same,--fond of enjoying the present, careless of the future; his conversation that of a man of sense, his actions those of a fool.

As writers become more numerous, it is natural for readers to become more indolent; whence must necessarily arise a desire of attaining knowledge with the greatest possible ease.

The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue.