Providence has fixed the limits of human enjoyment by immovable boundaries, and has set different gratifications at such a distance from each other, that no art or power can bring them together. This great law it is the business of every rational being to understand, that life may not pass away in an attempt to make contradictions consistent, to combine opposite qualities, and to unite things which the nature of their being must always keep asunder.

Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.

Almost all the moral good which is left among us is the apparent effect of physical evil.

Among the calamities of war may be numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates, and credulity encourages.

Friends are often chosen for similitude of manners, and therefore each palliates the other's failings because they are his own.

Modern writers are the moons of literature; they shine with reflected light, with light borrowed from the ancients.

Books that you may carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after all.