Labor, if it were not necessary for existence, would be indispensable for the happiness of man.

When the original is well chosen and judiciously copied, the imitator often arrives at excellence which he could never have attained without direction; for few are formed with abilities to discover new possibilities of excellence, and to distinguish themselves by means never tried before.

It is wonderful when a calculation is made, how little the mind is actually employed in the discharge of any profession.

The most Heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together.

Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.

Scarcely any degree of judgment is sufficient to restrain the imagination from magnifying that on which it is long detained

So willing is every man to flatter himself, that the difference between approving laws, and obeying them, is frequently forgotten; he that acknowledges the obligations of morality and pleases his vanity with enforcing them to others, concludes himself zealous in the cause of virtue.