I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when the… - Laurence Sterne

our knowledge physical, metaphysical, physiological, polemical, nautical, mathematical, ænigmatical, technical, biographical, romantical, chemical, and obstetrical, with fifty other branches of it, (most of ’em ending, as these do, in ical) have, for these two last centuries and more, gradually been creeping upwards towards that Aκμ4 of their perfections, from which, if we may form a conjecture from the advances of these last seven years, we cannot possibly be far off. When that happens, it is to be hoped, it will put an end to all kind of writings whatsoever; — the want of all kind of writing will put an end to all kind of reading; — and that in time, As war begets poverty, poverty peace,5 — — must, in course, put an end to all kind of knowledge, — and then — — we shall have all to begin over again; or, in other words, be exactly where we started. — — — Happy! thrice

I know there are readers in the world, as well as many other good people in it, who are no readers at all, — who find themselves ill at ease, unless they are let into the whole secret from first to last, of every thing which concerns you.

God tempers the wind, said Maria, to the shorn lamb.