You may translate books of science exactly. ... The beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives.

The majority of a society is the true definition of the public.

There is a certain degree of temptation which will overcome any virtue. Now, in so far as you approach temptation to a man, you do him an injury; and, if he is overcome, you share his guilt.

While an author is yet living, we estimate his powers by his worst performance; and when he is dead, we rate him by his best.

If an author be supposed to involve his thoughts in voluntary obscurity, and to obstruct, by unnecessary difficulties, a mind eager in the pursuit of truth; if he writes not to make others learned, but to boast the learning which he possesses himself, and wishes to be admired rather than understood, he counteracts the first end of writing, and justly suffers the utmost severity of censure, or the more afflicting severity of neglect.

In all evils which admit a remedy, impatience is to be avoided, because it wastes that time and attention in complaints, that, if properly applied might remove the cause.