Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.

I am always for getting a boy forward in his learning; for that is a sure good. I would let him at first read any English book which happens to engage his attention; because you have done a great deal when you have brought him to have entertainment from a book. He’ll get better books afterwards.

I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigree of nations.

I am disappointed by that stroke of death, which has eclipsed the gaiety of nations and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure.

I am not yet so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven. Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote.

I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven .

I am sorry I have not learned to play at cards. It is very useful in life: it generates kindness and consolidates society.