The mind, like all other things, will become impaired, the sciences are its food,--they nourish, but at the same time they consume it.

Even the best intentioned of great men need a few scoundrels around them; there are some things you cannot ask an honest ma to do.

A mediocre mind thinks it writes divinely; a good mind thinks it writes reasonably.

If it be usual to be strongly impressed by things that are scarce, why are we so little impressed by virtue?

I am told so many ill things of a man, and I see so few in him, that I begin to suspect he has a real but troublesome merit, as being likely to eclipse that of others.

I take sanctuary in an honest mediocrity.

Eminent station makes great men more great, and little ones less.