The maxim of Cleobulus, "Mediocrity is best," has been long considered a universal principle, extending through the whole compass of life and nature. The experience of every age seems to have given it new confirmation, and to show that nothing, however specious or alluring, is pursued with propriety or enjoyed with safety beyond certain limits.

You may translate books of science exactly. ... The beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written.

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor.

Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.

There is ... scarcely any species of writing of which we can tell what is its essence, and what are its constituents; every new genius produces some innovation, which, when invented and approved, subverts the rules which the practice of foregoing authors had established.

The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.