The world dread nothing so much as being convinced of their errors.

That which anyone has been long learning unwillingly, he unlearns with proportional eagerness and haste.

You shall yourself be judge. Reason, with most people, means their own opinion.

We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.

The greatest pleasure in life is that of reading while we are young. I have had as much of this pleasure perhaps as any one.

When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.

As a general rule, those who are dissatisfied with themselves will seek to go out of themselves into an ideal world. Persons in strong health and spirits, who take plenty of air and exercise, who are "in favor with, their stars," and have a thorough relish of the good things of this life, seldom devote themselves in despair to religion or the muses. Sedentary, nervous, hypochondriacal people, on the contrary, are forced, for want of an appetite for the real and substantial, to look out for a more airy food and speculative comforts.