I wish you would add an index rerum, that when the reader recollects any incident he may easily find it.

Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach.

There is ... scarcely any species of writing of which we can tell what is its essence, and what are its constituents; every new genius produces some innovation, which, when invented and approved, subverts the rules which the practice of foregoing authors had established.

It is wonderful to think how men of very large estates not only spend their yearly income, but are often actually in want of money. It is clear, they have not value for what they spend.

Milton, Madam, was a genius that could cut a Colossus from a rock; but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones.

Human happiness has always its abatements; the brightest sunshine of success is not without a cloud.

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.