Much is due to those who first broke the way to knowledge, and left only to their successors the task of smoothing it.

A transition from an author's book to his conversation is too often like an entrance into a large city, after a distant prospect. Remotely, we see nothing but spires of temples and turrets of palaces, and imagine it the residence of splendour, grandeur, and magnificence; but when we have passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded with smoke.

You raise your voice when you should reinforce your argument.

People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

A man finds in the productions of nature an inexhaustible stock of material on which he can employ himself, without any temptations to envy or malevolence, and has always a certain prospect of discovering new reasons for adoring the sovereign author of the universe.

Many falsehoods are passing into uncontradicted history.