Modesty is a bright dish-cover, which makes us fancy there is something very nice underneath it.

O this itch of the ear, that breaks out at the tongue! Were not curiosity so over-busy, detraction would soon be starved to death.

A man is in no danger so long as he talks his love; but to write it is to impale himself on his own pothooks.

Happiness grows at our own firesides, and is not to be picked in strangers' gardens.

A man, so to speak, who is not able to bow to his own conscience every morning is hardly in a condition to respectfully salute the world at any other time of the day.

Nothing is so beneficial to a young author as the advice of a man whose judgment stands constitutionally at the freezing-point.

Duty, though set about by thorns, may still be made a staff supporting even while it tortures. Cast it away, and, like the prophet's wand, it changes to a snake.