The present is an eternal now.
Neither the praise nor the blame is our own.
What shall I do to be for ever known, And make the age to come my own?
It is a hard and nice subject for a man to speak of himself: it grates his own heart to say anything of disparagement, and the reader's ear to hear anything of praise from him.
Nothing so soon the drooping spirits can raise As praises from the men, whom all men praise.
Lukewarmness I account a sin, as great in love as in religion.