A few men are sufficient to broach falsehoods, which are afterwards innocently diffused by successive relaters.

Shame arises from the fear of men, conscience from the fear of God.

The task of an author is, either to teach what is not known, or to recommend known truths by his manner of adorning them; either to let new light in upon the mind, and open new scenes to the prospect, or to vary the dress and situation of common objects, so as to give them fresh grace and more powerful attractions, to spread such flowers over the regions through which the intellect has already made its progress, as may tempt it to return, and take a second view of things hastily passed over, or negligently regarded.

No knowledge is useless, with the exception of heraldry.

Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him.

It is very common for us to desire most what we are least qualified to obtain.

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.