He that studies only men will get the body of knowledge without the soul; and he that studies only books, the soul without the body.

Mystery magnifies danger, as a fog the sun, the hand that warned Belshazzar derived its horrifying effect from the want of a body.

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.

All adverse and depressing influences can be overcome, not by fighting, by by rising above them.

Men of strong minds and who think for themselves, should not be discouraged on finding occasionally that some of their best ideas have been anticipated by former writers; they will neither anathematize others nor despair themselves. They will rather go on discovering things before discovered, until they are rewarded with a land hitherto unknown, an empire indisputably their own, both right of conquest and of discovery.

It is the briefest yet wisest maxim which tells us to meddle not.

Custom looks to things that are past, and fashion to things that are present, but both of them are somewhat purblind as to things that are to come.