The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

To exact of every man who writes that he should say something new, would be to reduce authors to a small number; to oblige the most fertile genius to say only what is new, would be to contract his volumes to a few pages. Yet, surely, there ought to be some bounds to repetition; libraries ought no more to be heaped for ever with the same thoughts differently expressed, than with the same books differently decorated.

As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.

It is commonly supposed that the uniformity of a studious life affords no matter for narration: but the truth is, that of the most studious life a great part passes without study. An author partakes of the common condition of humanity; he is born and married like another man; he has hopes and fears, expectations and disappointments, griefs and joys, and friends and enemies, like a courtier or a statesman; nor can I conceive why his affairs shuld not excite curiosity as much as the whisper of a drawing-room, or the factions of a camp.

To be free it is not enough to beat the system, one must beat the system every day

Had I learned to fiddle, I should have done nothing else.

Some have little power to do good, and have likewise little strength to resist evil.