Where secrecy or mystery begins, vice or roguery is not far off.

If we estimate dignity by immediate usefulness, agriculture is undoubtedly the first and noblest science.

That is the happiest conversation where there is no competition, no vanity, but a calm, quiet interchange of sentiments...

Those who have no power to judge of past times but by their own, should always doubt their conclusions

Few faults of style, whether real or imaginary, excite the malignity of a more numerous class of readers, than the use of hard words.

The end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing.

Commerce however we may please ourselves with the contrary opinion, is one of the daughters of fortune, inconstant and deceitful as her mother. She chooses her residence where she is least expected, and shifts her abode when her continuance is, in appearance, most firmly settled.