To neglect at any time preparation for death is to sleep on our post at a siege; to omit it in old age is to sleep at an attack.

Avarice is generally the last passion of those lives of which the first part has been squandered in pleasure, and the second devoted to ambition. He that sinks under the fatigue of getting wealth, lulls his age with the milder business of saving it

The business of a poet is to examine not the individual but the species; to remark general properties and large appearances.

Truth, like beauty, varies its fashions, and is best recommended by different dresses to different minds; and he that recalls the attention of mankind to any part of learning which time has left behind it, may be truly said to advance the literatures of his own age. As the manners of nations vary, new topicks of persuasion become necessary, and new combinations of imagery are produced; and he that can accommodate himself to the reigning taste, may always have readers who perhaps would not have looked upon better performances.

The peculiar doctrine of Christianity is that of a universal sacrifice and perpetual propitiation.

Misfortunes should always be expected.

There is nothing so minute, or inconsiderable, that I would not rather know it than not.