Surely nothing is more reproachful to a being endowed with reason, than to resign its powers to the influence of the air, and live in dependence on the weather and the wind, for the only blessings which nature has put into our power, tranquillity and benevolence. To look up to the sky for the nutriment of our bodies, is the condition of nature; to call upon the sun for peace and gaiety, or deprecate the clouds lest sorrow should overwhelm us, is the cowardice of idleness, and the idolatry of folly.

All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to show how much he can spare.

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 roads of science are narrow, so that they who travel them, must wither follow or meet one another.

He that never thinks can never be wise.

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

The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.