I used to wonder how a man of birth and spirit could endure to be wholly insignificant and obscure in a foreign country, when he might live with lustre in his own.

It is the first rule in oratory that a man must appear such as he would persuade others to be: and that can be accomplished only by the force of his life.

Simplicity, without which no human performance can arrive at perfection.

There is no vice or folly that requires so much nicety and skill to manage as vanity; nor any which by ill management makes so contemptible a figure.

Perverseness is your whole defence.

So endless and exorbitant are the desires of men that they will grasp at all, and can form no scheme of perfect happiness with less.

Fine words! I wonder where you stole them.