"Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation; but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand than it becomes a torpedo to him, and benumbs all his faculties."

"A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity."

"Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true."

"The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are."

"Sir, what is Poetry? Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all know what light is: but it is not easy to tell what it is."

"Was there ever yet any thing written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's Progress?"

"There is in this world no real delight (excepting those of sensuality), but exchange of ideas in conversation."

"I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark."

"It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them."

"The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public."

"He was a very good hater."

"If the man who turnips cries, Cry not when his father dies, 'Tis a proof that he had rather Have a turnip than his father."

"Come, let me know what it is that makes a Scotchman happy!"

"A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing."

"Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people."

"Wickedness is always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to everything."

"I have, all my life long, been lying till noon; yet I tell all young men, and tell them with great sincerity, that nobody who does not rise early will ever do any good."

"No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned ... A man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company."

"A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly."

"I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made."

"If lawyers were to undertake no causes till they were sure they were just, a man might be precluded altogether from a trial of his claim, though, were it judicially examined, it might be found a very just claim."

"A lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge. Consider, sir; what is the purpose of courts of justice? It is, that every man may have his cause fairly tried, by men appointed to try causes. A lawyer is not to tell what he knows to be a lie: he is not to produce what he knows to be a false deed; but he is not to usurp the province of the jury and of the judge, and determine what shall be the effect of evidence — what shall be the result of legal argument."

"Then with no throbs of fiery pain, No cold gradations of decay, Death broke at once the vital chain, And freed his soul the nearest way."

"And sure th' Eternal Master found His single talent well employ'd."

"When learning's triumph o'er her barb'rous foes First reared the stage, immortal Shakespeare rose; Each change of many-colored life he drew, Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new: Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, And panting Time toiled after him in vain."

"The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to remove."

"There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity."

"The richest author that ever grazed the common of literature."

"It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world."

"A desire for knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind; and every human being, whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to give all he has to get knowledge."

"Let me rejoice in the light which Thou hast imparted; let me serve Thee with active zeal, humbled confidence, and wait with patient expectation for the time in which the soul which Thou receivest shall be satisfied with knowledge."

"From Thee, great God: we spring, to Thee we tend, Path, motive, guide, original, and end."

"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."

"Ignorance in other men may be censured as idleness, in an academick it must be abhorred as treachery."

"Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult."

"A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek."

"I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read."

"Round numbers are always false."

"Fly fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other."

"Books that you may carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after all."

"He who praises everybody praises nobody."

"Catch then, O! catch the transient hour, Improve each moment as it flies; Life's a short Summer — man a flower, He dies — alas! how soon he dies!"

"Here closed in death th' attentive eyes That saw the manners in the face."

"Every man naturally persuades himself that he can keep his resolutions, nor is he convinced of his imbecility but by length of time and frequency of experiment."

"O Lord, my Maker and Protector, who hast graciously sent me into this world, to work out my salvation, enable me to drive from me all such unquiet and perplexing thoughts as may mislead or hinder me in the practice of those duties which thou hast required. When I behold the works of thy hands and consider the course of thy providence, give me Grace always to remember that thy thoughts are not my thoughts, nor thy ways my ways. And while it shall please Thee to continue me in this world where much is to be done and little to be known, teach me by thy Holy Spirit to withdraw my mind from unprofitable and dangerous enquiries, from difficulties vainly curious, and doubts impossible to be solved. Let me rejoice in the light which thou hast imparted, let me serve thee with active zeal, and humble confidence, and wait with patient expectation for the time in which the soul which Thou receivest, shall be satisfied with knowledge."

"I am inclined to believe that few attacks either of ridicule or invective make much noise, but by the help of those they provoke."

"There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow; but there is something in it so like virtue, that he who is wholly without it cannot be loved."

"There is one writer, and, perhaps, many who do not write, to whom the contraction of these pernicious privileges appears very dangerous, and who startle at the thoughts of England free, and America in chains. Children fly from their own shadow, and rhetoricians are frighted by their own voices. Chains is, undoubtedly, a dreadful word; but, perhaps, the masters of civil wisdom may discover some gradations between chains and anarchy. Chains need not be put upon those who will be restrained without them. This contest may end in the softer phrase of English superiority and American obedience. We are told, that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution of our own liberties; an event, which none but very perspicacious politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally contagious, how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?"

"There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good."