It Is Common To Overlook What Is

I Am Not Yet So Lost In Lexicography, As To Forget That Words Are The Daughters Of The Earth, And That Things Are The Sons Of Heaven. Language Is Only The Instrument Of Science, And Words Are But The Signs Of Ideas: I Wish, However, That The Instrument Might Be Less Apt To Decay, And That Signs Might Be Permanent, Like The Things Which They Denote.

No Writer Can Be Fully Convicted Of Imitation Except There Is A Concurrence Of More Resemblance Than Can Be Imagined To Have Happened By Chance; As Where The Same Ideas Are Conjoined Without Any Natural Series Or Necessary Coherence, Or Where Not Only The Thought But The Words Are Copied.

It Is Astonishing That Any Man Can Forbear Enquiring Seriously Whether There Is A God; Whether God Is Just; Whether This Life Is The Only State Of Existence.

The Pleasure Of Expecting Enjoyment Is Often Greater Than That Of Obtaining It, And The Completion Of Almost Every Wish Is Found A Disappointment.

A Country Is In A Bad State, Which Is Governed Only By Laws; Because A Thousand Things Occur For Which Laws Cannot Provide, And Where Authority Ought To Interpose.