Secrecy is the soul of all great designs.

He that has never known adversity is but half acquainted with others, or with himself.

Reply to wit with gravity, and to gravity with wit.

There are circumstances of peculiar difficulty and danger, where a mediocrity of talent is the most fatal quantum that a man can possibly possess. Had Charles the First and Louis the Sixteenth been more wise or more weak, more firm or more yielding, in either case they had both of them saved their heads.

We cannot think too highly of our nature, nor too humbly of ourselves.

Neither can we admit that definition of genius that some would propose--"a power to accomplish all that we undertake;" for we might multiply examples to prove that this definition of genius contains more than the thing defined. Cicero failed in poetry, Pope in painting, Addison in oratory; yet it would be harsh to deny genius to these men.

He that is gone so far as to cut the claws of the lion, will not feel himself quite secure, until he has also drawn his teeth.