Pedantry prides herself on being wrong by rules; while common sense is contented to be right without them.

The acquirements of science maybe termed the armor of the mind.

It is with antiquity as with ancestry, nations are proud of the one, and individuals of the other; but if they are nothing in themselves, that which is their pride ought to be their humiliation.

Let those who would affect singularity with success first determine to be very virtuous, and they will be sure to be very singular.

Alas! What is man? Whether he be deprived of that light which is from on high, of whether he discard it, a frail and trembling creature; standing on time, that bleak and narrow isthmus between two eternities, he sees nothing but impenetrable darkness on the one hand, and doubt, distrust, and conjecture, still more perplexing, on the other. Most gladly would he take an observation, as to whence he has come, or whither he is going; alas, he has not the means: his telescope is too dim, his compass too wavering, his plummet too short.

Genius in one grand particular is like life. We know nothing of either but by their effects.

It is far better to borrow experience than to buy it.