The present time is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment, and we are forced to supply its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation.

No man reads a book of science from pure inclination. The books that we do read with pleasure are light compositions, which contain a quick succession of events.

Officious, innocent, sincere, Of every friendless name the friend.

When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness.

Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see.

The wickedness of a loose or profane author is more atrocious than that of a giddy libertine or drunken ravisher, not only because it extends its effects wider, as a pestilence that taints the air is more destructive than poison infused in a draught, but because it is committed with cool deliberation.