concerning the subject he was himself writing upon.

Every man, in his more serious moments, must confess that he has done
few things in the course of his life he would not wish undone; and
experience must have shown him that the things he most feared would have
been better ihan those he most prayed for.

Vanity is our dearest weakness, in more senses than one: a man will
sacrifice every thing, and starve out all his other inclinations to keep
alive that one.

The man who trusts entirely to nature when he is sick, runs a great
risk; but he who puts himself in the hands of a physician runs a still
greater: of the two, nature would seem the better nurse, for she will,
at all events, act honestly, and can have no possible interest in
tampering with disease.

A great idea may be thus defined:--it gives us the perception of many
others, and it discovers to us all at once what we could only have
arrived at by a course of reading or inquiry.

We are told to place no faith in appearances, yet it will be found a
wiser course to judge from the human countenance rather than the human
voice: most men place a guard over their words and their actions, but
very few can blind the expression that is conveyed by the features.

To assist our fellow-creatures is the noblest privilege of mortality: it
is, in some sort, forestalling the bounty of Providence.

There is no doubt that memory, although it may be cultivated, is