For however often a man may receive an obligation from you, if you refuse a request, all former favors are effaced by this one denial.

It is better to excel in any single art than to arrive only at mediocrity in several, so moderate skill in several is to be preferred where one cannot attain to perfection in any.

However often you may have done them a favour, if you once refuse they forget everything except your refusal.

That indolent but agreeable condition of doing nothing.

Fear is a feeling that is stronger than love.

There is no book so bad that it is not profitable in some part. -Nullus est liber tam malus ut non aliqua parte prosit

Literature is both my joy and my comfort: it can add to every happiness and there is no sorrow it cannot console.