The greatest genius is never so great as when it is chastised and subdued by the highest reason.

It is always easy to shut a book, but not quite so easy to get rid of a lettered coxcomb.

There is one passage in the Scriptures to which all the potentates of Europe seem to have given their unanimous assent and approbation...."There went out a decree in the days of Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed."

Some indeed there are who profess to despise all flattery, but even these are nevertheless to be flattered, by being told that they do despise it.

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.

Literature has her quacks no less than medicine, and they are divided into two classes; those who have erudition without genius, and those who have volubility without depth; we shall get second-hand sense from the one, and original nonsense from the other.

The young fancy that their follies are mistaken by the old for happiness. The old fancy that their gravity is mistaken by the young for wisdom.