That extremes beget extremes is an apothegm built on the most profound observation of the human mind.

Very great personages are not likely to form very just estimates either of others or of themselves; their knowledge of themselves is obscured by the flattery of others; their knowledge of others is equally clouded by circumstances peculiar to themselves. For in the presence of the great, the modest are sure to suffer from too much diffidence, and the confident from too much display.

Friendship, of itself a holy tie, is made more sacred by adversity.

Time is the measurer of all things, but is itself immeasurable, and the grand discloser of all things, but is itself undisclosed.

He that can please nobody is not so much to be pitied as he that nobody can please.

God will excuse our prayers for ourselves whenever we are prevented from them by being occupied in such good works as to entitle us to the prayers of others.

If we look backwards to antiquity it should be as those that are winning a race.