Unbind the charms that in slight fables lie and teach that truth is truest poesy.
I would not fear nor wish my fate, but boldly say each night, to-morrow let my sun his beams display, or in clouds hide them; I have lived today.
Neither the praise nor the blame is our own.
All this world's noise appears to me a dull, ill-acted comedy!
The present is all the ready money Fate can give.
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.