That politeness which we put on, in order to keep the assuming and the presumptuous at a proper distance will generally succeed. But it sometimes happens that these obtrusive characters are on such excellent terms with themselves that they put down this very politeness to the score of their own great merits and high pretensions, meeting the coldness of our reserve with a ridiculous condescension of familiarity, in order to set us at ease with ourselves.

Great men, like comets, are eccentric in their courses, and formed to do extensive good by modes unintelligible to vulgar minds.

Calumny crosses oceans, scales mountains and traverses deserts, with greater ease than the Scythian Abaris, and like him, rides upon a poisoned arrow.

The interests of society often render it expedient not to utter the whole truth, the interests of science never: for in this field we have much more to fear from the deficiency of truth than from its abundance.

It has been said that men carry on a kind of coasting trade with religion. In the voyage of life, they profess to be in search of heaven, but take care not to venture so far in their approximations to it, as entirely to lose sight of the earth; and should their frail vessel be in danger of shipwreck, they will gladly throw their darling vices overboard, as other mariners their treasures, only to fish them up again when the storm is over.

Brutes leave ingratitude to man.

The praise of the envious is far less creditable than their censure; they praise only that which they can surpass, but that which surpasses them they censure.