Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.

Distance either of time or place is sufficient to reconcile weak minds to wonderful relations.

An age that melts in unperceiv'd decay, And glides in modest innocence away.

Wine gives great pleasure; and every pleasure is of itself a good. It is a good, unless counterbalanced by evil.

That distrust which intrudes so often on your mind is a mode of melancholy, which, if it be the business of a wise man to be happy, it is foolish to indulge; and if it be a duty to preserve our faculties entire for their proper use, it is criminal. Suspicion is very often an useless pain.

Applause abates diligence.

Critics ought never to be consulted, but while errors may yet be rectified or insipidity suppressed. But when the book has once been dismissed into the world, and can be no more retouched, I know not whether a very different conduct should not be prescribed, and whether firmness and spirit may not sometimes be of use to overpower arrogance and repel brutality.