Nothing has tended more to retard the advancement of science than the disposition in vulgar minds to vilify what they cannot comprehend.

Man is a transitory being, and his designs must partake of the imperfections their author.

Every man has some favorite topic of conversation, on which, by a feigned seriousness of attention, he may be drawn to expatiate without end.

I do not envy a clergyman's life as an easy life, nor do I envy the clergyman who makes it an easy life.

By taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first, by showing that she made him so happy as a married man, that he wishes to be so a second time.

Grief is a species of idleness.

The hapless wit has his labors always to begin, the call for novelty is never satisfied, and one jest only raises expectation of another.