“If there is anything that can be called genius it consists chiefly in the ability to give that attention to a subject which keeps it steadily in the mind till we have surveyed it accurately on all sides.”

“The rules of navigation never navigated a ship. The rules of architecture never built a house.”

“But when, in the first setting out, he takes it for granted without proof, that distinctions found in the structure of all languages, have no foundation in nature; this surely is too fastidious a way of treating the common sense of mankind.”

“There is no greater impediment to the advancement of knowledge than the ambiguity of words.”

“Every conjecture we can form with regard to the works of God has as little probability as the conjectures of a child with regard to the works of a man.”

“If there is anything that can be called genius it consists chiefly in the ability to give that attention to a subject which keeps it steadily in the mind till we have surveyed it accurately on all sides.”