Scarce any man becomes eminently disagreeable but by a departure from his real character, and an attempt at something for which nature or education has left him unqualified.

A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but, one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.

I wish you would add an index rerum, that when the reader recollects any incident he may easily find it.

The heroes of literary history have been no less remarkable for what they have suffered than for what they have achieved.

We have now learned that rashness and imprudence will not be deterred from taking credit; let us try whether fraud and avarice may be more easily restrained from giving it.

...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.

It is not from reason and prudence that people marry, but from inclination.