No man was ever great by imitation.

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

Trust as little as you can to report, and examine all you can by your own senses.

There is no kind of idleness by which we are so easily seduced as that which dignifies itself by the appearance of business.

Knowledge is praised and desired by multitudes whom her charms could never rouse from the couch of sloth; whom the faintest invitation of pleasure draws away from their studies; to whom any other method of wearing the day is more eligible than the use of books, and who are more easily engaged by any conversation than such as may rectify their notions or enlarge their comprehension.

This mournful truth is everywhere confessed, slow rises worth by poverty depressed.

Where necessity ends, desire and curiosity begin; and no sooner are we supplied with everything nature can demand than we sit down to contrive artificial appetites.