Few take advice, or physic, without wry faces at it.

I could hardly feel much confidence in a man who had never been imposed upon.

A lawyer's brief will be brief, before a freethinker thinks freely.

The praises of others may be of use in teaching us, not what we are, but what we ought to be.

Histories used often to be stories: the fashion now is to leave out the story. Our histories are stall-fed: the facts are absorbed by the reflexions, as the meat is sometimes by the fat.

The effects of human wickedness are written on the page of history in characters of blood: but the impression soon fades away; so more blood must be shed to renew it.

In the moment of our creation we receive the stamp of our individuality; and much of life is spent in rubbing off or defacing the impression.