Time Is A Perishable Commodity.

If We Take In Our Hand Any Volume; Of Divinity Or School Metaphysics, For Instance; Let Us Ask, Does It Contain Any Abstract Reasoning Concerning Quantity Or Number? No. Does It Contain Any Experimental Reasoning Concerning Matter Of Fact And Existence? No. Commit It Then To The Flames: For It Can Contain Nothing But Sophistry And Illusion.

Human Happiness Seems To Consist In Three Ingredients; Action, Pleasure And Indolence. And Though These Ingredients Ought To Be Mixed In Different Proportions, According To The Disposition Of The Person, Yet No One Ingredient Can Be Entirely Wanting Without Destroying In Some Measure The Relish Of The Whole Composition.

The Supposition That The Future Resembles The Past, Is Not Founded On Arguments Of Any Kind, But Is Derived Entirely From Habit.

In The Sphere Of Natural Investigation, As In Poetry And Painting, The Delineation Of That Which Appeals Most Strongly To The Imagination, Derives Its Collective Interest From The Vivid Truthfulness With Which The Individual Features Are Portrayed.

For As To The Dispersing Of Books, That Circumstance Does Perhaps As Much Harm As Good: Since Nonsense Flies With Greater Celerity, And Makes Greater Impression Than Reason; Though Indeed No Particular Species Of Nonsense Is So Durable. But The Several Forms Of Nonsense Never Cease Succeeding One Another; And Men Are Always Under The Dominion Of Some One Or Other, Though Nothing Was Ever Equal In Absurdity And Wickedness To Our Present Patriotism.