It is common to overlook what is near by keeping the eye fixed on something remote.
No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance.
Human reason borrowed many arts from the instinct of animals.
Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.
There are charms made only for distant admiration.
No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library; for who can see the wall crowded on every side by mighty volumes, the works of laborious meditations and accurate inquiry, now scarcely known but by the catalogue.