An infallible characteristic of meanness is cruelty. Men who have practiced tortures on animals without pity, relating them without shame, how can they still hold their heads among human beings?

So many objections may be made to everything, that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something.

If I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many things to please him.

The safe and general antidote against sorrow is employment.

You cannot, by all the lecturing in the world, enable a man to make a shoe.

I am far from any intention to limit curiosity, or confine the labours of learning to arts of immediate and necessary use. It is only from the various essays of experimental industry, and the vague excursions of mind set upon discovery, that any advancement of knowledge can be expected; and though many must be disappointed in their labours, yet they are not to be charged with having spent their time in vain; their example contributed to inspire emulation, and their miscarriage taught others the way to success.

The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.