[French] authors are more afraid of offending delicacy and rules, than ambitious of sublimity.

[Corneille] was inspired by Roman authors and Roman spirit, Racine with delicacy by the polished court of Louis XIV.

Shakespeare, with an improved education and in a more enlightened age, might easily have attained the purity and correction of Racine; but nothing leads one to suppose that Racine in a barbarous age would have attained the grandeur, force and nature of Shakespeare.

Lawyers and rogues are vermin not easily rooted out of a rich soil.

The passions seldom give good advice but to the interested and mercenary. Resentment generally suggests bad measures. Second thoughts and good nature will rarely, very rarely, approve the first hints of anger.

One's mind suffers only when one is young and while one is ignorant of the world. When one has lived for some time, one learns that the young think too little and the old too much, and one grows careless about both.

Men are often capable of greater things than they perform - They are sent into the world with bills of credit, and seldom draw to their full extent.