Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach.

People in general do not willingly read if they have anything else to amuse them.

Evil is uncertain in the same degree as good, and for the reason that we ought not to hope too securely, we ought not to fear with to much dejection.

A mere literary man is a dull man; a man who is solely a man of business is a selfish man; but when literature and commerce are united, they make a respectable man.

Little would be wanting to the happiness of life, if every man could conform to the right as soon as he was shown it.

An author places himself uncalled before the tribunal of criticism and solicits fame at the hazard of disgrace.

All discourse of which others cannot partake is not only an irksome usurpation of the time devoted to pleasure and entertainment, but, what never fails to excite resentment, an insolent assertion of superiority, and a triumph over less enlightened understandings. The pedant is, therefore, not only heard with weariness but malignity; and those who conceive themselves insulted by his knowledge never fail to tell with acrimony how injudiciously it was exerted.