Happiness, that grand mistress of the ceremonies in the dance of life, impels us through all its mazes and meanderings, but leads none of us by the same route.

Contemporaries appreciate the person rather than their merit, posterity will regard the merit rather than the person.

He that swells in prosperity will be sure to shrink in adversity.

Time, the cradle of hope.... Wisdom walks before it, opportunity with it, and repentance behind it: he that has made it his friend will have little to fear from his enemies, but he that has made it his enemy will have little to hope from his friends.

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.

Success seems to be that which forms the distinction between confidence and conceit.

The art of declamation has been sinking in value from the moment that speakers were foolish enough to publish, and hearers wise enough to read.