“There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable that I would not rather know it than not know it.”

“I would rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.”

“I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.”

“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. ”

“Men know that women are an overmatch for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or the most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.”

“People have now a-days, (said he,) got a strange opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do so much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken. I know nothing that can be best taught by lectures, except where experiments are to be shewn. You may teach chymistry by lectures.—You might teach making of shoes by lectures!”

“Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life . . . the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.”