Nothing detains the reader's attention more powerfully than deep involutions of distress, or sudden vicissitudes of fortune; and these might be abundantly afforded by memoirs of the sons of literature. They are entangled by contracts which they know not how to fulfill, and obliged to write on subjects which they do not understand. Every publication is a new period of time, from which some increase or declension of fame is to be reckoned. The gradations of a hero's life are from battle to battle, and of an author's from book to book.

Hope is necessary in every condition.

If a man has a science to learn he must regularly and resolutely advance.

The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking

Spite and ill-nature are among the most expensive luxuries in life.

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

I have already enjoyed too much; give me something to desire.