There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either.

Those writers who lie on the watch for novelty can have little hope of greatness; for great things cannot have escaped former observation.

Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

The power, indeed, of every individual is small, and the consequence of his endeavours imperceptible, in a general prospect of the world. Providence has given no man ability to do much, that something might be left for every man to do. The business of life is carried on by a general co-operation; in which the part of any single man can be no more distinguished, than the effect of a particular drop when the meadows are floated by a summer shower: yet every drop increases the inundation, and every hand adds to the happiness or misery of mankind.

Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.

Few have abilities so much needed by the rest of the world as to be caressed on their own terms; and he that will not condescend to recommend himself by external embellishments must submit to the fate of just sentiment meanly expressed, and be ridiculed and forgotten before he is understood.