A thousand years may elapse before there shall appear another man with a power of versification equal to that of Pope.

Beauty, without kindness, dies unenjoyed and undelighting.

The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.

Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.

He who expects much will be often disappointed; yet disappointment seldom cures us of expectation, or has any other effect than that of producing a moral sentence or peevish exclamation.

Every man speaks and writes with intent to be understood; and it can seldom happen but he that understands himself, might convey his notions to another, if, content to be understood, he did not seek to be admired; but when once he begins to contrive how his sentiments may be received, not with most ease to his reader, but with most advantage to himself, he then transfers his consideration from words to sounds, from sentences to periods, and, as he grows more elegant, becomes less intelligible.

There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done everything by chance.