It is, however, not necessary, that a man should forbear to write, till he has discovered some truth unknown before; he may be sufficiently useful, by only diversifying the surface of knowledge, and luring the mind by a new appearance to a second view of those beauties which it had passed over inattentively before.

Men go to sea, before they know the unhappiness of that way of life; and when they have come to know it, they cannot escape from it, because it is then too late to choose another profession; as indeed is generally the case with men, when they have once engaged in any particular way of life.

All industry must be excited by hope.

Learn that the present hour alone is man's.

Books have always a secret influence on the understanding.

There is not, perhaps, to a mind well instructed, a more painful occurrence, than the death of one we have injured without reparation.

No estimate is more in danger of erroneous calculations than those by which a man computes the force of his own genius.