Alexander Bryan Johnson

War and fights, like courtship and kisses, are seldom interesting except to the actors and their connexions; hence I will not burden my readers with the military operations of these remote regions.

Man soon finds what he wants to find. If he cannot find it otherwise, he creates it for his special enjoyment

His majesty could not see why the principle was not applicable to politics. He resolved to try it.

His majesty recollected the celebrated quack doctor, who when asked why his patrons were more numerous than those of regular practitioners, replied, that he was patronised by the fools, who are numerous in every community

As theories are the means by which we attempt to discourse of external existences that our senses cannot discover; and as the desire for such discourse originates a large portion of our theories; I will teach you the capacity of language …

To fix the fluctuating mass of theories, no man has suggested any other expedient than the construction of some new theory, to whose authority... all persons shall submit. The remedy is constantly augmenting the disease.

Success but sharpens his avidity, and facility but augments his impatience.

Man exists in a world of his own creation.

I request the reader to seek some more creditable interpretation. The best which he can conceive should be assumed to be my intention: as on an escutcheon, when a figure resembles both an eagle and a buzzard, heraldry decides that the bird …

when my language or positions shall, in a casual perusal, seem absurd

All that the book contains is the elucidation of but one precept: namely, to interpret language by nature. We [generally and incorrectly] reverse the rule and interpret nature by language.