Every Human Being Whose Mind Is Not

Composition Is For The Most Part An Effort Of Slow Diligence And Steady Perseverance, To Which The Mind Is Dragged By Necessity Or Resolution, And From Which The Attention Is Every Moment Starting To More Delightful Amusements.

It Ought To Be The First Endeavour Of A Writer To Distinguish Nature From Custom; Or That Which Is Established Because It Is Right, From That Which Is Right Only Because It Is Established; That He May Neither Violate Essential Principles By A Desire Of Novelty, Nor Debar Himself From The Attainment Of Beauties Within His View, By A Needless Fear Of Breaking Rules Which No Literary Dictator Had Authority To Enact.

Resentment Is A Union Of Sorrow With Malignity; A Combination Of A Passion Which All Endeavor To Avoid With A Passion Which All Concur To Detest.

To Be Prejudiced Is Always To Be Weak; Yet There Are Prejudices So Near To Laudable That They Have Been Often Praised And Are Always Pardoned.

Forgetfulness Is Necessary To Remembrance. Ideas Are Retained By Renovation Of That Impression Which Time Is Always Wearing Away,and Which New Images Are Striving To Obliterate. If Useless Thoughts Could Be Expelled From The Mind, All The Valuable Parts Of Our Knowledge Would More Frequently Recur, And Every Recurrence Would Reinstate Them In Their Former Place.