To mean understandings, it is sufficient honour to be numbered amongst the lowest labourers of learning; but different abilities must find different tasks. To hew stone, would have been unworthy of Palladio; and to have rambled in search of shells and flowers, had but ill suited with the capacity of Newton.

No one ever became great by imitation.

Invention is almost the only literary labour which blindness cannot obstruct.

Critics, like the rest of mankind, are very frequently misled by interest.

Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away. It is the putrefaction of stagnant life, and is remedied by exercise and motion.

It is better to live rich than to die rich.

He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.