It is incident to physicians, I am afraid, beyond all other men, to mistake subsequence for consequence.

...a common observation, that few are mended by imprisonment, and that he, whose crimes have made confinement necessary, seldom makes any other use of his enlargement, than to do, with greater cunning, what he did before with less.

If a man has a science to learn he must regularly and resolutely advance.

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

Little would be wanting to the happiness of life, if every man could conform to the right as soon as he was shown it.

I will take no more physick, not even my opiates; for I have prayed that I may render up my soul to God unclouded.

No cause more frequently produces bashfulness than too high an opinion of our own importance. He that imagines an assembly filled with his merit, panting with expectation, and hushed with attention, easily terrifies himself with the dread of disappointing them, and strains his imagination in pursuit of something that may vindicate the veracity of fame, and show that his reputation was not gained by chance.