You cannot give me an instance of any man who is permitted to lay out his own time contriving not to have tedious hours.

A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.

Allegories drawn to great length will always break.

It is no matter what you teach them first, any more than what leg you shall put into your breeches first. You may stand disputing which is best to put in first, but in the mean time your breech is bare. Sir, while you are considering which of two things you should teach your child first, another boy has learned them both.

You cannot give me an instance of any man who is permitted to lay out his own time contriving not to have tedious hours.

At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.

Human experience, which is constantly contradicting theory, is the great test of truth. A system, built upon the discoveries of a great many minds, is always of more strength, than what is produced by the mere workings of any one mind, which, of itself, can do very little. There is not so poor a book in the world that would not be a prodigious effort were it wrought out entirely by a single mind, without the aid of prior investigators.