The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.

The end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing.

The love of fame is a passion natural and universal, which no man, however high or mean, however wise or ignorant, was yet able to despise.

Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.

We suffer equal pain from the pertinacious adhesion of unwelcome images, as from the evanescence of those which are pleasing and useful.

There is scarcely any writer who has not celebrated the happiness of rural privacy, and delighted himself and his reader with the melody of birds, the whisper of groves, and the murmur of rivulets.

Self-love is often rather arrogant than blind; it does not hide our faults from ourselves, but persuades us that they escape the notice of others.