It has been sometimes asked how it comes to pass, that the world is divided by such difference of opinion?

I toiled year after year in expectation of retirement: but idleness has not brought with it the blessing of tranquillity.

Few minds are able to separate the ideas of greatness and prosperity.

It is often charged upon writers, that with all their pretensions to genius and discoveries, they do little more than copy one another.

I shall, therefore, venture to lay before you, such observations as have risen to my mind in the consideration of Virgil’s pastorals.

It is observed by Bacon, that “reading makes a full man, conversation a ready man, and writing an exact man.”

How readily the predominant passion snatches an interval of liberty, and how fast it expands itself when the weight of restraint is taken away.

The prejudices of mankind favor him who under-rates his own powers. He is no man’s rival, and therefore, may be every man’s friend.

It has long been charged by one part of mankind upon the other, that they will not take advice.

Men willingly believe what they wish to be true.