A fallible being will fail somewhere.

Life protracted is protracted woe.

Books, says Lord Bacon, can never teach us the use of books; the student must learn by commerce with mankind to reduce his speculations to practice. No man should think so highly of himself as to think he can receive but little light from books; no one so meanly, as to believe he can discover nothing but what is to be learned from them.

Works of imagination excel by their allurement and delight; by their power of attracting and detaining the attention. That book is good in vain which the reader throws away. He only is the master who keeps the mind in pleasing captivity; whose pages are perused with eagerness, and in hope of new pleasure are perused again; and whose conclusion is perceived with an eye of sorrow, such as the traveller casts upon departing day.

We have always pretensions to fame which, in our own hearts, we know to be disputable.

There must always be some advantage on one side or the other, and it is better that advantage should be had by talents than by chance.

Wit is that which has been often thought, but never before was well expressed.