Among the innumerable mortifications which waylay human arrogance on every side may well be reckoned our ignorance of the most common objects and effects, a defect of which we become more sensible by every attempt to supply it. Vulgar and inactive minds confound familiarity with knowledge and conceive themselves informed of the whole nature of things when they are shown their form or told their use; but the speculatist, who is not content with superficial views, harasses himself with fruitless curiosity, and still, as he inquires more, perceives only that he knows less.

No estimate is more in danger of erroneous calculations than those by which a man computes the force of his own genius.

Learn that the present hour alone is man's.

Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.

I do not see, Sir, that it is reasonable for a man to be angry at another, whom a woman has preferred to him; but angry he is, no doubt; and he is loath to be angry at himself.

The eye of the mind, like that of the body, can only extend its view to new objects, by losing sight of those which are now before it.

Life, however short, is made still shorter by waste of time.