There never was a bad man that had ability for good service.

Adversity is a severe instructor, set over us by one who knows us better than we do ourselves.

Poetry, with all its obscurity, has a more general as well as a more powerful dominion over the passions than the art of painting.

You had that action and counteraction which, in the natural and in the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers draws out the harmony of the universe.

Manners are of more importance than laws. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe.

Flattery is no more than what raises in a man's mind an idea of a preference which he has not.

History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn.