"I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made."

"I have, all my life long, been lying till noon; yet I tell all young men, and tell them with great sincerity, that nobody who does not rise early will ever do any good."

"A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing."

"Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult."

"Round numbers are always false."

"I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read."

"A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek."

" Exhausted worlds, imagined new..."

"A transition from an author's book to his conversation, is too often like an entrance into a large city, after a distant prospect. Remotely, we see nothing but spires of temples and turrets of palaces, and imagine it the residence of splendour, grandeur and magnificence; but when we have passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded with smoke."

"It is therefore of the utmost importance that those, who have any intention of deviating from the beaten roads of life, and acquiring a reputation superior to names hourly swept away by time among the refuse of fame, should add to their reason, and their spirit, the power of persisting in their purposes; acquire the art of sapping what they cannot batter, and the habit of vanquishing obstinate resistance by obstinate attacks."

"Frugality may be termed the daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance and the parent of Liberty."

Preface to Johnson's Dictionary: "Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language."

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

"He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty." -- [me: though not what he is saying, it is even more apt to say "He is no wise man that will quit a certainty of uncertainty." -- this type of certainty reifies uncertainty, levels-up perspective to the meta, conceives in topologies and supersessions.]

"The world is not yet exhausted..."

"Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings."

"He delighted to tread upon the brink of meaning."

"If the man who turnips cries,
Cry not when his father dies,
'Tis a proof that he had rather
Have a turnip than his father."

"The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public."

"The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality..."

Me: Sometimes a kicked stone is adequate, and proper, refutation.  "I refute it thus!."  August 6, 1763, p. 134

• Said as he kicked a stone, speaking of Berkeley's "ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter"

"A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden."

"There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn."

"...he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy."

"Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding."