“Never trust a man who writes more than he reads.”

“I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.”

“The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write: a man will turn over half a library to make one book.”

“A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.”

“It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.”

“It is strange that there should be so little reading in the world, and so much writing. People in general do not willingly read, if they can have any thing else to amuse them.”

“As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly. ”