Modern writers are the moons of literature; they shine with reflected light, with light borrowed from the ancients.

To forget, or pretend to do so, to return a borrowed article, is the meanest sort of petty theft.

Studious to please, yet not ashamed to fail.

Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach.

Among many parallels which men of imagination have drawn between the natural and moral state of the world, it has been observed that happiness as well as virtue consists in mediocrity.

Tea's proper use is to amuse the idle, and relax the studious, and dilute the full meals of those who cannot use exercise, and will not use abstinence.

If one was to think constantly of death, the business of life would stand still