The inheritance of a distinguished and noble name is a proud inheritance to him who lives worthily of it.

The martyrs to vice far exceed the martyrs to virtue, both in endurance and in number.

The study of mathematics, like the Nile, begins in minuteness but ends in magnificence.

If it be true that men of strong imaginations are usually dogmatists--and I am inclined to think it is so--it ought to follow that men of weak imaginations are the reverse; in which case we should have some compensation for stupidity. But it unfortunately happens that no dogmatist is more obstinate or less open to conviction than a fool.

Those who bequeath unto themselves a pompous funeral, are at just so much expense to inform the world of something that had much better be concealed; namely, that their vanity has survived themselves.

Those graces which from their presumed facility encourage all to attempt an imitation of them, are usually the most inimitable.

All poets pretend to write for immortality, but the whole tribe have no objection to present pay, and present praise. Lord Burleigh is not the only statesman who has thought one hundred pounds too much for a song, though sung by Spenser; although Oliver Goldsmith is the only poet who ever considered himself to have been overpaid.