The More You Do, The More You

A Man Who Does Not Endeavour To Seem More Than He Is Will Generally Be Thought Nothing Of. We Habitually Make Such Large Deductions For Pretence And Imposture That No Real Merit Will Stand Against Them. It Is Necessary To Set Off Our Good Qualities With A Certain Air Of Plausibility And Self-importance, As Some Attention To Fashion Is Necessary.

It Has Been The Resolution Of Mankind In All Ages Of The World. No People, No Age, Ever Threw Away The Fruits Of Past Wisdom, Or The Enjoyment Of Present Blessings, For Visionary Schemes Of Ideal Perfection. It Is The Knowledge Of The Past, The Actual Infliction Of The Present, That Has Produced All Changes, All Innovations, And All Improvements - Not (as Is Pretended) The Chimerical Anticipation Of Possible Advantages, But The Intolerable Pressure Of Long-established, Notorious, Aggravated, And Growing Abuses.

The More A Man Writes, The More He Can Write.

There Is A Quiet Repose And Steadiness About The Happiness Of Age, If The Life Has Been Well Spent. Its Feebleness Is Not Painful. The Nervous System Has Lost Its Acuteness. But, In Mature Years We Feel That A Burn, A Scald, A Cut, Is More Tolerable Than It Was In The Sensitive Period Of Youth.

We Cannot By A Little Verbal Sophistry Confound The Qualities Of Different Minds, Nor Force Opposite Excellences Into A Union By All The Intolerance In The World. If We Have A Taste For Some One Precise Style Or Manner, We May Keep It To Ourselves And Let Others Have Theirs. If We Are More Catholic In Our Notions, And Want Variety Of Excellence And Beauty, It Is Spread Abroad For Us To Profusion In The Variety Of Books And In The Several Growth Of Men's Minds, Fettered By No Capricious Or Arbitrary Rules.