The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.

One of the amusements of idleness is reading without fatigue of close attention; and the world, therefore, swarms with writers whose wish is not to be studied, but to be read.

There ambush here relentless ruffians lay, And here the fell attorney prowls for prey.

No man is obliged to do as much as he can do. A man is to have part of his life to himself.

It was the peculiar artifice of Habit not to suffer her power to be felt at first. Those whom she led, she had the address of appearing only to attend, but was continually doubling her chains upon her companions; which were so slender in themselves, and so silently fastened, that while the attention was engaged by other objects, they were not easily perceived. Each link grew tighter as it had been longer worn; and when by continual additions they became so heavy as to be felt, they were very frequently too strong to be broken.

It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them.

Tediousness is the most fatal of all faults.