That Kind Of Life Is Most Happy

Every Man Who Attacks My Belief, Diminishes In Some Degree My Confidence In It, And Therefore Makes Me Uneasy; And I Am Angry With Him Who Makes Me Uneasy.

There Is A Certain Race Of Men That Either Imagine It Their Duty, Or Make It Their Amusement, To Hinder The Reception Of Every Work Of Learning Or Genius, Who Stand As Sentinels In The Avenues Of Fame, And Value Themselves Upon Giving Ignorance And Envy The First Notice Of A Prey.

The Prosperity Of A People Is Proportionate To The Number Of Hands And Minds Usefully Employed. To The Community, Sedition Is A Fever, Corruption Is A Gangrene, And Idleness Is An Atrophy. Whatever Body Or Society Wastes More Than It Acquires, Must Gradually Decay, And Every Being That Continues To Be Fed, And Eases To Labor, Takes Away Something From The Public Stock.

Combinations Of Wickedness Would Overwhelm The World, By The Advantage Which Licentious Principles Afford, Did Not Those Who Have Long Practised Perfidy Grow Faithless To Each Other.

Men Who Have Flattered Themselves Into This Opinion Of Their Own Abilities, Look Down On All Who Waste Their Lives Over Books, As A Race Of Inferior Beings Condemned By Nature To Perpetual Pupilage, And Fruitlessly Endeavouring To Remedy Their Barrenness By Incessant Cultivation, Or Succour Their Feebleness By Subsidiary Strength. They Presume That None Would Be More Industrious Than They, If They Were Not More Sensible Of Deficiences; And Readily Conclude, That He Who Places No Confidence In His Own Powers Owes His Modesty Only To His Weakness.