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

Health is certainly more valuable than money; because it is by health that money is procured; but thousands and millions are of small avail to alleviate the protracted tortures of the gout, to repair the broken organs of sense, or resuscitate the powers of digestion. Poverty is, indeed, an evil from which we naturally fly, but let us not run from one enemy to another, nor take shelter in the arms of sickness.

What provokes your risibility, Sir? Have I said anything that you understand? Then I ask pardon of the rest of the company.

Fly-fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.

No man is obliged to do as much as he can do. A man is to have part of his life to himself.

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.

Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.