If modesty and candor are necessary to an author in his judgment of his own works, no less are they in his reader.

I had some short struggle in my mind whether I should resign my lover or my liberty, but this lasted not long. I found myself as free as air and could not bear the thought of putting myself in any man's power for life only from a present capricious inclination.

Men look on knowledge which they learn--or might learn--from others as they do on the most beautiful structures which are not their own: in outward objects, they would rather behold their own hogsty than their neighbor's palace; and in mental ones, would prefer one grain of knowledge gained by their own observation to all the wisdom of a thousand Solomons.

Their virtues lived in their children. The family changed its persons but not its manners, and they continued a blessing to the world from generation to generation.

[T]he judicious reader ought to know what the chief character in any work of the imagination will naturally perform, according to the situation he is thrown into, as well as doth the author himself.

There appears to be but two grand master passions or movers in the human mind, namely, love and pride. And what constitutes the beauty or deformity of a man's character is the choice he makes under which banner he determines to enlist himself. But there is a strong distinction between different degress in the same thing and a mixture of two contraries.

The words of kindness are more healing to a drooping heart than balm or honey.