To understand the works of celebrated authors, to comprehend their systems, and retain their reasonings, is a task more than equal to common intellects; and he is by no means to be accounted useless or idle, who has stored his mind with acquired knowledge, and can detail it occasionally to others who have less leisure or weaker abilities.

To talk in public, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to inquire and answer inquiries, is the business of the scholar

What signifies protesting so against flattery when a person speaks well of one, it must either be true or false, you know if true, let us rejoice in his good opinion if he lies, it is a proof at least that he loves more to please me, than to sit s

Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts. It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists.

The peculiar doctrine of Christianity is that of a universal sacrifice and perpetual propitiation.

No, Sir, you will have much more influence by giving or lending money where it is wanted, than by hospitality.

Life, to be worthy of a rational being, must be always in progression; we must always purpose to do more or better than in time past.