Folly disgusts us less by her ignorance than pedantry by her learning.

Some are cursed with the fullness of satiety; and how can they bear the ills of life when its very pleasures fatigue them?

If you cannot avoid a quarrel with a blackguard, let your lawyer manage it, rather than yourself. No man sweeps his own chimney, but employs a chimney-sweeper, who has no objection to dirty work, because it is his trade.

Posthumous fame is a plant of tardy growth, for our body must be the seed of it; or we may liken it to a torch, which nothing but the last spark of life can light up; or we may compare it to the trumpet of the archangel, for it is blown over the dead; but unlike that awful blast, it is of earth, not of heaven, and can neither rouse nor raise us.

It has been well observed that we should treat futurity as an aged friend from whom we expect a rich legacy.

There are many that despise half the world; but if there be any that despise the whole of it, it is because the other half despises them.

If we steal thoughts from the moderns, it will be cried down as plagiarism; if from the ancients, it will be cried up as erudition.