There are two things which ought to teach us to think but meanly of human glory; the very best have had their calumniators, the very worst their panegyrists.

We ask advice but we mean approbation.

No two things differ more than hurry and despatch. Hurry is the mark of a weak mind; despatch of a strong one.

Women who are the least bashful are not unfrequently the most modest; and we are never more deceived than when we would infer any laxity of principle from that freedom of demeanor which often arises from a total ignorance of vice.

All the poets are indebted more or less to those who have gone before them; even Homer's originality has been questioned, and Virgil owes almost as much to Theocritus, in his Pastorals, as to Homer, in his Heroics; and if our own countryman, Milton, has soared above both Homer and Virgil, it is because he has stolen some feathers from their wings.

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 want enemies, excel others; if you want friends, let others excel you.