Irresolution and mutability are often the faults of men whose views are wide, and whose imagination is vigorous and excursive.

Though the wisdom or virtue of one can very rarely make many happy, the folly or vice of one man often make many miserable.

Human experience, which is constantly contradicting theory, is the great test of truth. A system, built upon the discoveries of a great many minds, is always of more strength, than what is produced by the mere workings of any one mind, which, of itself, can do very little. There is not so poor a book in the world that would not be a prodigious effort were it wrought out entirely by a single mind, without the aid of prior investigators.

Women can spin very well; but they cannot make a good book of cookery.

A man who always talks for fame never can be pleasing. The man who talks to unburthen his mind is the man to delight you.

Whatever professes to benefit by pleasing must please at once. The pleasures of the mind imply something sudden and unexpected; that which elevates must always surprise.

Those who attempt nothing themselves think every thing easily performed, and consider the unsuccessful always as criminal.