A Scotchman Must Be A Very Sturdy

We Are All Prompted By The Same Motives, All Deceived By The Same Fallacies, All Animated By Hope, Obstructed By Danger, Entangled By Desire, And Seduced By Pleasure.

It Is Justly Considered As The Greatest Excellency Of Art To Imitate Nature; But It Is Necessary To Distinguish Those Parts Of Nature Which Are Most Proper For Imitation: Greater Care Is Still Required In Representing Life, Which Is So Often Discoloured By Passion Or Deformed By Wickedness. If The World Be Promiscuously Described, I Cannot See Of What Use It Can Be To Read The Account; Or Why It May Not Be As Safe To Turn The Eye Immediately Upon Mankind, As Upon A Mirror Which Shows All That Presents Itself Without Discrimination.

Accustom Your Children Constantly To This; If A Thing Happened At One Window And They, When Relating It, Say That It Happened At Another, Do Not Let It Pass, But Instantly Check Them; You Do Not Know Where Deviation From Truth Will End

We Are Perpetually Moralists, But We Are Geometricians Only By Chance. Our Intercourse With Intellectual Nature Is Necessary; Our Speculations Upon Matter Are Voluntary, And At Leisure.

All Knowledge Is Of Itself Of Some Value. There Is Nothing So Minute Or Inconsiderable, That I Would Not Rather Know It Than Not. In The Same Manner, All Power, Of Whatever Sort, Is Of Itself Desirable. A Man Would Not Submit To Learn To Hem A Ruffle, Of His Wife, Or His Wife's Maid; But If A Mere Wish Could Attain It, He Would Rather Wish To Be Able To Hem A Ruffle.