There are prating coxcombs in the world who would rather talk than listen, although Shakespeare himself were the orator, and human nature the theme!

Duke Chartres used to boast that no man could have less real value for character than himself, yet he would gladly give twenty thousand pounds for a good one, because he could immediately make double that sum by means of it.

It is always safe to learn, even from our enemies; seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends.

No one knows where he who invented the plow was born, nor where he died; yet he has done more for humanity than the whole race of heroes who have drenched the earth with blood and whose deeds have been handed down with a precision proportionate only to the mischief they wrought.

Any one can give advice, such as it is, but only a wise man knows how to profit by it.

The art of declamation has been sinking in value from the moment that speakers were foolish enough to publish, and hearers wise enough to read.

How strange it is that we of the present day are constantly praising that past age which our fathers abused, and as constantly abusing that present age, which our children will praise.