Our energy is in proportion to the resistance it meets.
If mankind had wished for what is right, they might have had it long ago.
I hate to be near the sea, and to hear it roaring and raging like a wild beast in its den. It puts me in mind of the everlasting efforts of the human mind, struggling to be free, and ending just where it began.
Diffidence and awkwardness are antidotes to love.
Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own.
Defoe says that there were a hundred thousand country fellows in his time ready to fight to the death against popery, without knowing whether popery was a man or a horse.