When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.

For, if we take an examination of what is generally understood by happiness, as it has respect either to the understanding or the senses, we shall find all its properties and adjuncts will herd under this short definition: that it is a perpetual possession of being well deceived.

An idle reason lessens the weight of the good ones you gave before.

To acknowledge you were wrong yesterday is simply to let the world know that you are wiser today than you were then.

By candle-light nobody would have taken you for above five-and-twenty.

In all assemblies, though you wedge them ever so close, we may observe this peculiar property, that over their heads there is room enough; but how to reach it is the difficult point. To this end the philosopher's way in all ages has been by erecting certain edifices in the air.

The axe of intemperance has lopped off his green boughs and left him a withered trunk.