Learning is its own exceeding great reward.

The number of objects we see from living in a large city amuses the mind like a perpetual raree-show, without supplying it with any ideas.

The way to get on in the world is to be neither more nor less wise, neither better nor worse than your neighbours.

The present is an age of talkers, and not of doers; and the reason is, that the world is growing old. We are so far advanced in the Arts and Sciences, that we live in retrospect, and dote on past achievement.

There is something captivating in spirit and intrepidity, to which, we often yield as to a resistless power; nor can he reasonably expect, the confidence of others who too apparently distrusts himself.

Religion either makes men wise and virtuous, or it makes them set up false pretenses to both.

We often choose a friend as we do a mistress - for no particular excellence in themselves, but merely from some circumstance that flatters our self-love.