Books that you may carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after all.

Every cold empirick, when his heart is expanded by a successful experiment, swells into a theorist.

Patience and submission are very carefully to be distinguished from cowardice and indolence. We are not to repine, but we may lawfully struggle; for the calamities of life, like the necessities of Nature, are calls to labor and diligence.

There are some works which the authors must consign unpublished to posterity, however uncertain be the event, however hopeless be the trust. He that writes the history of his own times, if he adhere steadily to truth, will write that which his own times will not easily endure. He must be content to reposite his book till all private passions shall cease, and love and hatred give way to curiosity.

About things on which the public thinks long it commonly attains to think right.

A writer who obtains his full purpose loses himself in his own lustre.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.