There are certain things in which mediocrity is not to be endured, such as poetry, music, painting, public speaking.

How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!

A good author, and one who writes carefully, often discovers that the expression of which he has been in search without being able to discover it, and which he has at last found, is that which was the most simple, the most natural, and which seems as if it ought to have presented itself at once, without effort, to the mind.

No man is so perfect, so necessary to his friends as to give them no cause to miss him less.

Wit is the god of moments, but Genius is the god of ages.

Favor exalts a man above his equals, but his dismissal from that favor places him below them.

What is certain in death is somewhat softened by what is uncertain; it is an indefiniteness in the time, which holds a certain relation to the infinite, and what is called eternity.