No man can fall into contempt but those who deserve it.

Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent.

I will take no more physick, not even my opiates; for I have prayed that I may render up my soul to God unclouded.

Suspicion is very often a useless pain.

He that has too much to do will do something wrong.

Even those to whom Providence has allotted greater strength of understanding, can expect only to improve a single science. In every other part of learning, they must be content to follow opinions, which they are not able to examine; and, even in that which they claim as peculiarly their own, can seldom add more than some small particle of knowledge, to the hereditary stock devolved to them from ancient times, the collective labour of a thousand intellects.

Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.