Good and evil, reward and punishment, are the only motives to a rational creature: these are the spur and reins whereby all mankind are set on work, and guided.

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials for knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.

There cannot be greater rudeness than to interrupt another in the current of his discourse.