Sorrow is properly that state of the mind in which our desires are fixed upon the past without looking forward to the future.

All intellectual improvement arises from leisure.

The essence of poetry is invention; such invention as, by producing something unexpected, surprises and delights.

To mean understandings, it is sufficient honour to be numbered amongst the lowest labourers of learning; but different abilities must find different tasks. To hew stone, would have been unworthy of Palladio; and to have rambled in search of shells and flowers, had but ill suited with the capacity of Newton.

The mental disease of the present generation is impatience of study, contempt of the great masters of ancient wisdom, and a disposition to rely wholly upon unassisted genius and natural sagacity. The wits of these happy days have discovered a way to fame, which the dull caution of our laborious ancestors durst never attempt; they cut the knots of sophistry, which it was formerly the business of years to untie, solve difficulties by sudden irradiations of intelligence, and comprehend long processes of argument by immediate intuition.

Our aspirations are our possibilities.

If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.