He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.

It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.

How gloomy would be the mansions of the dead to him who did not know that he should never die: that what now acts shall continue its agency, and what now thinks shall think on forever!

He left the name at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a tale.

From all our observations we may collect with certainty, that misery is the lot of man, but cannot discover in what particular condition it will find most alleviations.

Advice is seldom welcome. Those who need it most, like it least.

It is true that of far the greater part of things, we must content ourselves with such knowledge as description may exhibit, or analogy supply; but it is true likewise, that these ideas are always incomplete, and that at least, till we have compared them with realities, we do not know them to be just. As we see more, we become possessed of more certainties, and consequently gain more principles of reasoning, and found a wider base of analogy.