The number of such as live without the ardour of inquiry is very small, though many content themselves with cheap amusements, and waste their lives in researches of no importance.

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

He that voluntarily continues in ignorance, is guilty of all the crimes which ignorance produces.

The commodiousness of money is indeed great; but there are some advantages which money cannot buy, and which therefore no wise man will by the love of money be tempted to forego.

They whose activity of imagination is often shifting the scenes of expectation, are frequently subject to such sallies of caprice as make all their actions fortuitous, destroy the value of their friendship, obstruct the efficacy of their virtues, and set them below the meanest of those who persist in their resolutions, execute what they design, and perform what they have promised.

There is always something a woman will prefer to the truth.

Most men think indistinctly, and therefore cannot speak with exactness . . .