Words too familiar, or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet.

The disturbers of our happiness, in this world, are our desires, our griefs, and our fears.

To write is, indeed, no unpleasing employment, when one sentiment readily produces another, and both ideas and expressions present themselves at the first summons; but such happiness, the greatest genius does not always obtain; and common writers know it only to such a degree, as to credit its possibility. Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.

The balls of sight are so formed, that one man's eyes are spectacles to another, to read his heart with.

In general those parents have the most reverence who most deserve it; for he that lives well cannot be despised.

The present is never a happy state to any human being.

There is such a difference between the pursuits of men in great cities that one part of the inhabitants lives to little other purpose than to wonder at the rest. Some have hopes and fears, wishes and aversions, which never enter into the thoughts of others, and inquiry is laboriously exerted to gain that which those who possess it are ready to throw away.