For Who Is Pleased With Himself.

Great Abilities Are Not Requisite For An Historian; For In Historical Composition, All The Greatest Powers Of The Human Mind Are Quiescent. He Has Facts Ready To His Hand; So There Is No Exercise Of Invention. Imagination Is Not Required In Any Degree; Only About As Much As Is Used In The Lowest Kinds Of Poetry. Some Penetration, Accuracy, And Coloring, Will Fit A Man For The Task, If He Can Give The Application Which Is Necessary.

A Short Letter To A Distant Friend Is, In My Opinion, An Insult Like That Of A Slight Bow Or Cursory Salutation - A Proof Of Unwillingness To Do Much, Even Where There Is A Necessity Of Doing Something.

A Voyage To The Moon, However Romantick And Absurd The Scheme May Now Appear, Since The Properties Of Air Have Been Better Understood, Seemed Highly Probable To Many Of The Aspiring Wits In The Last Century

We Often Need Reminding Even If We Do Not Often Need Educating.

The Great Effect Of Friendship Is Beneficence, Yet By The First Act Of Uncommon Kindness It Is Endangered.