Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay. Princes and lords may flourish or may fade,- A breath can make them, as a breath has made; But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, When once destroy'd, can never be supplied.

Philosophy ... should not pretend to increase our present stock, but make us economists of what we are possessed of.

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

All the sciences are, in some measure, linked with each other, and before the one is ended, the other begins.

The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I had gained a new friend. When I read a book over I have perused before, it resembles the meeting with an old one.

So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar, But bind him to his native mountains more.

The Europeans are themselves blind who describe fortune without sight. No first-rate beauty ever had finer eyes, or saw more clearly. They who have no other trade but seeking their fortune need never hope to find her; coquette-like, she flies from her close pursuers, and at last fixes on the plodding mechanic who stays at home and minds his business.