We may have uneasy feelings for seeing a creature in distress without pity; for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them.

No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned... a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.

To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.

The most useful truths are always universal, and unconnected with accidents and customs.

Try and forget our cares and sickness, and contribute, as we can to the happiness of each other.

Justice is indispensably and universally necessary, and what is necessary must always be limited, uniform, and distinct

He that condemns himself to compose on a stated day will often bring to his task attention dissipated, a memory embarrassed, an imagination overwhelmed, a mind distracted with anxieties, a body languishing with disease: he will labour on a barren topic till it is too late to change it; or, in the ardour of invention, diffuse his thoughts into wild exuberance, which the pressing hour of publication cannot suffer judgment to examine or reduce.