Peevishness may be considered the canker of life, that destroys its vigor and checks its improvement; that creeps on with hourly depredations, and taints and vitiates what it cannot consume.

There may be community of material possessions, but there can never be community of love or esteem.

The joy of life is variety; the tenderest love requires to be rekindled by intervals of absence.

Authors and lovers always suffer some infatuation, from which only absence can set them free.

I would advise you, Sir, to study algebra, if you are not an adept already in it: your head would get less muddy, and you will leave off tormenting your neighbours about paper and packthread, while we all live together in a world that is bursting with sin and sorrow.

New arts are long in the world before poets describe them; for they borrow everything from their predecessors, and commonly derive very little from nature or from life.

About things on which the public thinks long it commonly attains to think right.