Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen. Like friends, too, we should return to them again and again for, like true friends, they will never fail us - never cease to instruct - never cloy.

We strive as hard to hide our hearts from ourselves as from others, and always with more success; for in deciding upon our own case we are both judge, jury, and executioner, and where sophistry cannot overcome the first, or flattery the second, self-love is always ready to defeat the sentence by bribing the third.

There are two way of establishing a reputation, one to be praised by honest people and the other to be accused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the first one, because it will always be accompanied by the latter.

Bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret.

Unlike the sun, intellectual luminaries shine brightest after they set.

Honor is unstable and seldom the same; for she feeds upon opinion, and is as fickle as her food.

Shining outward qualities, although they may excite first-rate expectations, are not unusually found to be the companions of second-rate abilities.