Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content.

Guilt once harbored in the conscious breast, intimidates the brave, degrades the great.

The business of a poet is to examine not the individual but the species; to remark general properties and large appearances.

Read the book you do honestly feel a wish and curiosity to read.

He that outlives a wife whom he has long loved, sees himself disjoined from the only mind that has the same hopes, and fears, and interest; from the only companion with whom he has shared much good and evil; and with whom he could set his mind at liberty, to retrace the past or anticipate the future. The continuity of being is lacerated; the settled course of sentiment and action is stopped; and life stands suspended and motionless.

Riches seldom make their owners rich.

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.