"I remember a passage in Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield," which he was afterwards fool enough to expunge: "I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing."... There was another fine passage too which he struck out: "When I was a young man, being anxious to distinguish myself, I was perpetually starting new propositions. But I soon gave this over; for I found that generally what was new was false.""

"The true, strong, and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small."

"Johnson said that he could repeat a complete chapter of "The Natural History of Iceland" from the Danish of Horrebow, the whole of which was exactly thus: "There are no snakes to be met with throughout the whole island." 62 [Chap. lxxii.]"

"Goldsmith, however, was a man who whatever he wrote, did it better than any other man could do."

"He was so generally civil that nobody thanked him for it."

"Employment, sir, and hardships prevent melancholy."

"All this [wealth] excludes but one evil,—poverty."

"Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking."

"Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen."

"In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath."

"I never take a nap after dinner but when I have had a bad night; and then the nap takes me."

"Was ever poet so trusted before?"

"Let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is not known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he is known."

"Much may be made of a Scotchman if he be caught young."

"I am a great friend to public amusements; for they keep people from vice."

"I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an infidel; but if he be an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is an infidel; that is to say, he has never thought upon the subject."

"A very unclubable man."

"This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to."

"I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else."

"Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves."

"Sir, I think all Christians, whether Papists or Protestants, agree in the essential articles, and that their differences are trivial, and rather political than religious."

"I am glad that he thanks God for anything."

"Sir, he [Bolingbroke] was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger at his death."

"Wretched un-idea'd girls."

"Gloomy calm of idle vacancy."

"The atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honourable gentleman has with such spirit and decency charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny; but content myself with wishing that I may be one of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience."

"A fellow that makes no figure in company, and has a mind as narrow as the neck of a vinegar-cruet."

"The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth."

"To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example."

"Words are men's daughters, but God's sons are things."

"Trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay."

"How small of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure! Still to ourselves in every place consigned, Our own felicity we make or find. With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, Glides the smooth current of domestic joy."

"A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian, Who left scarcely any style of writing untouched, And touched nothing that he did not adorn."

"Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove The pangs of guilty power and hapless love! Rest here, distress'd by poverty no more; Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before; Sleep undisturb'd within this peaceful shrine, Till angels wake thee with a note like thine!"

"God bless you, my dear!"

"I will be conquered; I will not capitulate."

"Sir, I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance."

"Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding."

"Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice."

"Milton, Madam, was a genius that could cut a Colossus from a rock; but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones."

"It is as bad as bad can be: it is ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-drest."

"It might as well be said, "Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.""

"As I know more of mankind, I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man, upon easier terms than I was formerly."

"It is strange that there should be so little reading in the world, and so much writing. People in general do not willingly read, if they can have any thing else to amuse them."

"I never have sought the world; the world was not to seek me."

"Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea."