Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause awhile from letters, to be wise.

The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne.

Slavery is now nowhere more patiently endured, than in countries once inhabited by the zealots of liberty.

Discord generally operates in little things; it is inflamed ... by contrariety of taste oftener than principles.

Nothing is more common than mutual dislike, where mutual approbation is particularly expected.

Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any degree; only about as much as is used in the lowest kinds of poetry. Some penetration, accuracy, and coloring, will fit a man for the task, if he can give the application which is necessary.

Wisdom and virtue are by no means sufficient, without the supplemental laws of good-breeding, to secure freedom from degenerating into rudeness, or self esteem from swelling into insolence. A thousand incivilities may be committed, and a thousand offices neglected. without any remorse of conscience, or reproach from reason.