Confidence, as opposed, to modesty and distinguished from decent assurance, proceeds from self-opinion, and is occasioned by ignorance and flattery.

By reading a man does, as it were, antedate his life, and make himself contemporary with the ages past; and this way of running up beyond one's nativity is better than Plato's pre-existence.

People's opinions of themselves are legible in their countenances.

Prudence is a necessary ingredient in all the virtues, without which they degenerate into folly and excess.

Everyone has a fair turn to be as great as he pleases.

A man may as well expect to grow stronger by always eating as wiser by always reading.

A man by tumbling his thoughts, and forming them into expressions, gives them a new fermentation, which works them into a finer body.