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

But the distant hope of being one day useful or eminent ought not to mislead us too far from that study which is equally requisite to the great and mean, to the celebrated and obscure; the art of moderating the desires, of repressing the appetites; and of conciliating or retaining the favour of mankind.

I know not any crime so great that a man could contrive to commit as poisoning the sources of eternal truth.

[W]ith an unquiet mind, neither exercise, nor diet, nor physick can be of much use.

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

No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize, and force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability.

Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.