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

The eye of the mind, like that of the body, can only extend its view to new objects, by losing sight of those which are now before it.

In a Man's Letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirrour of his breast.

It is not difficult to conceive, however, that for many reasons a man writes much better than he lives. For without entering into refined speculations, it may be shown much easier to design than to perform. A man proposes his schemes of life in a state of abstraction and disengagement, exempt from the enticements of hope, the solicitations of affection, the importunities of appetite, or the depressions of fear.

There is a certain degree of temptation which will overcome any virtue. Now, in so far as you approach temptation to a man, you do him an injury; and, if he is overcome, you share his guilt.

A lexicographer, a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.

There is ... scarcely any species of writing of which we can tell what is its essence, and what are its constituents; every new genius produces some innovation, which, when invented and approved, subverts the rules which the practice of foregoing authors had established.