To exact of every man who writes that he should say something new, would be to reduce authors to a small number; to oblige the most fertile genius to say only what is new, would be to contract his volumes to a few pages. Yet, surely, there ought to be some bounds to repetition; libraries ought no more to be heaped for ever with the same thoughts differently expressed, than with the same books differently decorated.

I have often thought that there has rarely passed a life of which a judicious and faithful narrative would not be useful; for not only every man has, in the mighty mass of the world, great numbers in the same condition with himself, to whom his mistakes and miscarriages, escapes and expedients, would be of immediate and apparent use; but there is such a uniformity in the state of man, considered apart from adventitious and separable decorations and disguises, that there is scarce any possibility of good or ill but is common to human kind.

Self-love is a busy prompter.

It is our first duty to serve society, and after we have done that, we may attend wholly to the salvation of our own souls.

Where there is no difficulty there is no praise.

Our senses, our appetite, and our passions are our lawful and faithful guides in things that relate solely to this life.

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.