Governors being accustomed to hear of more crimes than they can punish, and more wrongs than they can redress, set themselves at ease by indiscriminate negligence, and presently forget the request when they lose sight of the petitioner.

Cruel with guilt, and daring with despair, the midnight murderer bursts the faithless bar; invades the sacred hour of silent rest and leaves, unseen, a dagger in your breast.

He that voluntarily continues in ignorance, is guilty of all the crimes which ignorance produces.

Nay, Madam, when you are declaiming, declaim; and when you are calculating, calculate.

If an author be supposed to involve his thoughts in voluntary obscurity, and to obstruct, by unnecessary difficulties, a mind eager in the pursuit of truth; if he writes not to make others learned, but to boast the learning which he possesses himself, and wishes to be admired rather than understood, he counteracts the first end of writing, and justly suffers the utmost severity of censure, or the more afflicting severity of neglect.

Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas.

Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.