There Is No Kind Of Idleness By

Few Of Those Who Fill The World With Books, Have Any Pretensions To The Hope Either Of Pleasing Or Instructing. They Have Often No Other Task Than To Lay Two Books Before Them, Out Of Which They Compile A Third, Without Any New Material Of Their Own, And With Very Little Application Of Judgment To Those Which Former Authors Have Supplied.

A Transition From An Author's Book To His Conversation, Is Too Often Like An Entrance Into A Large City.

Life Is Surely Given Us For Higher Purposes Than To Gather What Our Ancestors Have Wisely Thrown Away, And To Learn What Is Of No Value But Because It Has Been Forgotten.

No Man, However Enslaved To His Appetites, Or Hurried By His Passions, Can, While He Preserves His Intellects Unimpaired, Please Himself With Promoting The Corruption Of Others. He Whose Merit Has Enlarged His Influence Would Surely Wish To Exert It For The Benefit Of Mankind. Yet Such Will Be The Effect Of His Reputation, While He Suffers Himself To Indulge In Any Favourite Fault, That They Who Have No Hope To Reach His Excellence Will Catch At His Failings, And His Virtues Will Be Cited To Justify The Copiers Of His Vices.

Surely, It Is Much Easier To Respect A Man Who Has Always Had Respect, Than To Respect A Man Who We Know Was Last Year No Better Than Ourselves, And Will Be No Better Next Year.