Very great personages are not likely to form very just estimates either of others or of themselves; their knowledge of themselves is obscured by the flattery of others; their knowledge of others is equally clouded by circumstances peculiar to themselves. For in the presence of the great, the modest are sure to suffer from too much diffidence, and the confident from too much display.

The Grecian’s maxim would indeed be a sweeping clause in Literature; it would reduce many a giant to a pygmy; many a speech to a sentence; and many a folio to a primer.

I question if Epicurus and Hume have done mankind a greater service by the looseness of their doctrines than by the purity of their lives. Of such men we may more justly exclaim, than of Caesar, "Confound their virtues, they've undone the world!

An act by which we make one friend and one enemy is a losing game; because revenge is a much stronger principle than gratitude

Gold is worshipped in all climates, without a single temple, and by all classes, without a single hypocrite.

Marriage is a feast where the grace is sometimes better than the dinner.

Some read to think, these are rare; some to write, these are common; and some read to talk, and these form the great majority.