Covered with glory for the great things they would have accomplished…

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

Man exists in a world of his own creation.

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.

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 …

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.