The care of the critic should be to distinguish error from inability, faults of inexperience from defects of nature

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That friendship may be at once fond and lasting, there must not only be equal virtue on each part, but virtue of the same kind; not only the same end must be proposed but the same means must be approved by both

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Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness; he that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly become corrupt

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Surely life, if it be not long, is tedious, since we are forced to call in the assistance of so many trifles to rid us of our time, of that time which never can return

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Study requires solitude, and solitude is a state dangerous to those who are too much accustomed to sink into themselves

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Some have little power to do good, and have likewise little strength to resist evil

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Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound; great debts are like cannon; of loud noise, but little danger

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Scarcely any degree of judgment is sufficient to restrain the imagination from magnifying that on which it is long detained

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Scarce any man becomes eminently disagreeable but by a departure from his real character, and an attempt at something for which nature or education has left him unqualified

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Reason and truth will prevail at last

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