Riches may enable us to confer favors, but to confer them with propriety and grace requires a something that riches cannot give.

Hannibal knew better how to conquer than how to profit by the conquest; and Napoleon was more skilful in taking positions than in maintaining them. As to reverses, no general cart presume to say that he may not be defeated; but he can, and ought to say, that he will not be surprised.

There are male as well as female gossips.

She is deceitful as the calm that precedes the hurricane, smooth as the water on the verge of the cataract, and beautiful as the rainbow, that smiling daughter of the storm; but, like the mirage in the desert, she tantalizes us with a delusion that distance creates, and that contiguity destroys.

Imitation is the highest form of flattery.

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

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