All severity that does not tend to increase good, or prevent evil, is idle.

A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it.

A student may easily exhaust his life in comparing divines and moralists without any practical regard to morals and religion; he may be learning not to live but to reason... while the chief use of his volumes is unthought of, his mind is unaffected, and his life is unreformed.

The Church does not superstitiously observe days, merely as days, but as memorials of important facts. Christmas might be kept as well upon one day of the year as another; but there should be a stated day for commemorating the birth of our Saviour, because there is danger that what may be done on any day, will be neglected.

This man [Chesterfield], I thought, had been a Lord among wits; but I find he is only a wit among Lords.

The dependant who cultivates delicacy in himself very little consults his own tranquillity.

Nature never gives everything at once.