Each person's work is always a portrait of himself.

Ignorance is mere privation by which nothing can be produced: it is a vacuity in which the soul sits motionless and torpid for want of attraction: and, without knowing why, we always rejoice when we learn, and grieve when we forget.

So many objections may be made to everything, that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something.

It is common to overlook what is near by keeping the eye fixed on something remote.

Vulgar and inactive minds confound familiarity with knowledge, and conceive themselves informed of the whole nature of things, when they are shown their form or told their use.

When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

In discussing these exceptions from the course of nature, the first question is, whether the fact be justly stated. That which is strange is delightful, and a pleasing error is not willingly detected.