The society of dead authors has this advantage over that of the living: they never flatter us to our faces, nor slander us behind our backs, nor intrude upon our privacy, nor quit their shelves until we take them down.

Patience is the support of weakness; impatience the ruin of strength.

He that places himself neither higher nor lower than he ought to do exercises the truest humility.

When all run by common consent into vice, none appear to do so.

Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness when bequeathed by those who, even alive, would part with nothing.

That writer does the most who gives his reader the most knowledge and takes from him the least time.

In all countries where nature does the most, man does the least.