To read, write, and converse in due proportions, is, therefore, the business of a man of letters.

What is said upon a subject is gathered from an hundred people.

A fishing rod is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.

There is certainly no greater happiness than to be able to look back on a life usefully and virtuously employed, to trace our own progress in existence, by such tokens as excite neither shame nor sorrow.

Knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanics laughs at strength.

In writing, as in life, faults are endured without disgust when they are associated with transcendent merit, and may be sometimes recommended to weak judgments by the lustre which they obtain from their union with excellence; but it is the business of those who presume to superintend the taste or morals of mankind to separate delusive combinations, and distinguish that which may be praised from that which can only be excused.

Books have always a secret influence on the understanding.