The victims of ennui paralyze all the grosser feelings by excess, and torpify all the finer by disuse and inactivity. Disgusted with this world, and indifferent about another, they at last lay violent hands upon themselves, and assume no small credit for the sang froid with which they meet death. But, alas! such beings can scarcely be said to die, for they have never truly lived.

The highest knowledge can be nothing more than the shortest and clearest road to truth; all the rest is pretension, not performance, mere verbiage and grandiloquence, from which we can learn nothing.

Villainy that is vigilant will be an overmatch for virtue, if she slumber at her post.

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...

Friendship often ends in love, but love in friendship - never.

Many books owe their success to the good memories of their authors and the bad memories of their readers.

The upright, if he suffer calumny to move him, fears the tongue of man more than the eye of God.