He that would travel for the entertainment of others should remember that the great object of remark is human life.

A man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company

To forget, or pretend to do so, to return a borrowed article, is the meanest sort of petty theft.

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.

The gloomy and the resentful are always found among those who have nothing to do or who do nothing.

What we read with inclination makes a much stronger impression. If we read without inclination, half the mind is employed in fixing the attention; so there is but one half to be employed on what we read.

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.