Misery is caused for the most part, not by a heavy crush of disaster, but by the corrosion of less visible evils, which canker enjoyment, and undermine security. The visit of an invader is necessarily rare, but domestic animosities allow no cessation.

Self-love is a busy prompter.

You may translate books of science exactly. ... The beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written.

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.

Extended empires are like expanded gold, exchanging solid strength for feeble splendor.

Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him.

In civilized society we all depend upon each other, and our happiness is very much owing to the good opinion of mankind.