The liberty of using harmless pleasure will not be disputed; but it is still to be examined what pleasures are harmless.

It was said of Euripides, that every verse was a precept; and it may be said of Shakespeare, that from his works may be collected a system of civil and economical prudence.

Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.

Life is barren enough surely with all her trappings; let us be therefore cautious of how we strip her.

The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.

By the consultation of books, whether of dead or living authors, many temptations to petulance and opposition, which occur in oral conferences, are avoided. An author cannot obtrude his service unasked, nor can be often suspected of any malignant intention to insult his readers with his knowledge or his wit. Yet so prevalent is the habit of comparing ourselves with others, while they remain within the reach of our passions, that books are seldom read with complete impartiality, but by those from whom the writer is placed at such a distance that his life or death is indifferent.

A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden.