Many causes may vitiate a writer's judgement of his own works. On that which has cost him much labour he sets a high value, because he is unwilling to think that he has been diligent in vain: what has been produced without toilsome efforts is considered with delight as a proof of vigorous faculties and fertile invention; and the last work, whatever it be, has necessarily most of the grace of novelty.

If one was to think constantly of death, the business of life would stand still

The hopes of zeal are not wholly groundless.

Friends are often chosen for similitude of manners, and therefore each palliates the other's failings because they are his own.

There mark what ills the scholar's life assail, toil, envy, want, and patron.

Beauty, without kindness, dies unenjoyed and undelighting.

Age looks with anger on the temerity of youth, and youth with contempt on the scrupulosity of age.