The necessities of our condition require a thousand offices of tenderness, which mere regard for the species will never dictate.

To proportion the eagerness of contest to its importance seems too hard a task for human wisdom. The pride of wit has kept ages busy in the discussion of useless questions, and the pride of power has destroyed armies, to gain or to keep unprofitable possessions.

Learn that the present hour alone is man's.

The common people do not accurately adapt their thoughts to objects; nor, secondly, do they accurately adapt their words to their thoughts; they do not mean to lie; but, taking no pains to be exact, they give you very false accounts. A great part of their language is proverbial; if anything rocks at all, they say it rocks like a cradle; and in this way they go on.

A successful author is equally in danger of the diminution of his fame, whether he continues or ceases to write.

What is the reason that women servants ... have much lower wages than men servants ... when in fact our female house servants work much harder than the male?

Criticism, though dignified from the earliest ages by the labours of men eminent for knowledge and sagacity, has not yet attained the certainty and stability of science.