This love for truth, which ought to be inculcated as much as possible, may be of great servis [service] to preserve them from a bad taste, which was formerly very prevalent, I mean, that for romances and fabulous tales, which by degrees extinguish the love and taste of truth, and make the mind incapable of attending to such useful and serious lectures, as speak more to the reason than the imagination — — — —
[Livy, says,] we must accustom youth in reading such sort of authors [here referring to the “strange stories” of mythology from antiquity] to distinguish between the true and false, and must also tell them that reason and equity require that they should not reject all a writer says, because some things are false, nor believe all he relates without exception, because many things are true. — —
Employment is the grand preservative of health and innocence. when we have nothing to do, we immediately become a burden to ourselves the mind and body languish for want of exercise, and we fall into a thousand dangerous temptations.
The unattributed maxim had been floating around multiple miscellanies in the 18th century. The passage has since been attributed to George Shelley. Possibly copied from the miscellany collection, "The Rule of Life: In select Sentences, Collected from The Greatest Authors, Ancient and Modern."
Transcription
prefer solid sense to wit, never study to be diverting with out being useful; let no jest intrude upon good manners; nor say any thing the may offend modesty