Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well.

It is indeed not easy to distinguish affectation from habit; he that has once studiously developed a style, rarely writes afterwards with complete ease.

A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.

The most fatal disease of friendship is gradual decay, or dislike hourly increased by causes too slender for complaint, and too numerous for removal.

A gentleman who had been very unhappy in marriage, married immediately after his wife died; it was the triumph of hope over experience.

I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just.

There are indeed, in the present corruption of mankind, many incitements to forsake truth: the need of palliating our own faults and the convenience of imposing on the ignorance or credulity of others so frequently occur; so many immediate evils are