He that condemns himself to compose on a stated day will often bring to his task attention dissipated, a memory embarrassed, an imagination overwhelmed, a mind distracted with anxieties, a body languishing with disease: he will labour on a barren topic till it is too late to change it; or, in the ardour of invention, diffuse his thoughts into wild exuberance, which the pressing hour of publication cannot suffer judgment to examine or reduce.

The misery of man proceeds not from any single crush of overwhelming evil, but from small vexations continually repeated.

Politeness is fictitious benevolence. Depend upon it, the want of it never fails to produce something disagreeable to one or other.

Books are faithful repositories, which may be awhile neglected or forgotten; but when they are opened again, will again impart their instruction: memory, once interrupted, is not to be recalled. Written learning is a fixed luminary, which, after the cloud that had hidden it has passed away, is again bright in its proper station. Tradition is but a meteor, which, if once it falls, cannot be rekindled.

There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.

To have the management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained in a considerable degree by experience and habitual exercise.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.