The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing - it only hastens fools to rush in where angels fear to tread.

It is a maxim that no man was ever enslaved by influence while he was fit to be free.

The worst evils are those that never arrive.

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.

There are some works which the authors must consign unpublished to posterity, however uncertain be the event, however hopeless be the trust. He that writes the history of his own times, if he adhere steadily to truth, will write that which his own times will not easily endure. He must be content to reposite his book till all private passions shall cease, and love and hatred give way to curiosity.

I am not able to instruct you. I can only tell that I have chosen wrong. I have passed my time in study without experience; in the attainment of sciences which can, for the most part, be but remotely useful to mankind. I have purchased knowledge at the expense of all the common comforts of life: I have missed the endearing elegance of female friendship, and the happy commerce of domestic tenderness.