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.

Moderation is commonly firm, and firmness is commonly successful.

Marriage is the strictest tie of perpetual friendship, and there can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity; and he must expect to be wretched, who pays to beauty, riches, or politeness that regard which only virtue and piety can claim.

To talk in public, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to inquire and answer inquiries, is the business of the scholar

No writer can be fully convicted of imitation except there is a concurrence of more resemblance than can be imagined to have happened by chance; as where the same ideas are conjoined without any natural series or necessary coherence, or where not only the thought but the words are copied.

There are, indeed, few kinds of composition from which an author, however learned or ingenious, can hope a long continuance of fame.

Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.