The mind that engages in subjects of too great variety becomes confused and weakened.

It is true that impatience, the mother of stupidity, praises brevity, as if such persons had not life long enough to serve them to acquire a complete knowledge of one single subject, such as the human body; and then they want to comprehend the mind of God in which the universe is included, weighing it minutely and mincing it into infinite parts, as if they had to dissect it!

As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies confounds and saps itself.

Knowledge of the past and of the places of the earth is the ornament and food of the mind of man.

Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation... even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.

That the secret Mover of this Scheme (whoever he may be) intended to take advantage of the passions, while they were warmed by the recollection of past distresses, without giving time for cool, deliberative thinking, & that composure of Mind which is so necessary to give dignity & stability to measures, is rendered too obvious, by the mode of conducting the business, to need other proof than a reference to the proceeding.