Our actions must clothe us with an immortality loathsome or glorious.

The present time has one advantage over every other -- it is our own.

In science, reason is the guide; in poetry, taste. The object of the one is truth, which is uniform and indivisible; the object of the other is beauty, which is multiform and varied.

Bigotry murders religion to frighten fools with her ghost.

We make a goddess of Fortune ... and place her in the highest heaven. But it is not fortune that is exalted and powerful, but we ourselves that are abject and weak.

With books, as with companions, it is of more consequence to know which to avoid, than which to choose; for good books are as scarce as good companions...

Most of our misfortunes are more supportable than the comments of our friends upon them.