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

What a strange narrowness of mind now is that, to think the things we have not known are better than the things we have known.

No one will persist long in helping someone who will not help themselves.

A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it.

It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.

We have always pretensions to fame which, in our own hearts, we know to be disputable.

Most men think indistinctly, and therefore cannot speak with exactness . . .