“How small, of all that human hearts endure,That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.Still to ourselves in every place consign'd,Our own felicity we make or find:”

“We are told, that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution of our own liberties; an event, which none but very perspicacious politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally contagious, how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?”

“Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. When we enquire into any subject, the first thing we have to do is to know what books have treated of it. This leads us to look at catalogues, and at the backs of books in libraries.”

“I look upon every day to be lost in which I do not make a new acquaintance.”

“No weakness of the human mind has more frequently incurred animadversion, than the negligence with which men overlook their own faults, however flagrant, and the easiness with which they pardon them, however frequently repeated.”

“He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own dispositions will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the griefs which he purposes to remove”

“The best part of every author is in general to be found in his book, I assure you.”