It Is Better A Man Should Be

We Seldom Learn The True Want Of What We Have Till It Is Discovered That We Can Have No More.

Among The Innumerable Mortifications Which Waylay Human Arrogance On Every Side May Well Be Reckoned Our Ignorance Of The Most Common Objects And Effects, A Defect Of Which We Become More Sensible By Every Attempt To Supply It. Vulgar And Inactive Minds Confound Familiarity With Knowledge And Conceive Themselves Informed Of The Whole Nature Of Things When They Are Shown Their Form Or Told Their Use; But The Speculatist, Who Is Not Content With Superficial Views, Harasses Himself With Fruitless Curiosity, And Still, As He Inquires More, Perceives Only That He Knows Less.

The Mind Is Never Satisfied With The Objects Immediately Before It, But Is Always Breaking Away From The Present Moment, And Losing Itself In Schemes Of Future Felicity... The Natural Flights Of The Human Mind Are Not From Pleasure To Pleasure, But From Hope To Hope.

Books To Judicious Compilers, Are Useful; To Particular Arts And Professions, They Are Absolutely Necessary; To Men Of Real Science, They Are Tools: But More Are Tools To Them.

An Epithet Or Metaphor Drawn From Nature Ennobles Art; An Epithet Or Metaphor Drawn From Art Degrades Nature.