The first springs of great events, like those of great rivers, are often mean and little.

I love white Portugal wine better than claret, champagne, or burgundy. I have a sad vulgar appetite.

Men always grow vicious before they become unbelievers.

It often happens that, if a lie be believed only for an hour, it has done its work, and there is no further occasion for it.

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.

Common fluency of speech in many men and most women is owing to a scarcity of matter.

It is in disputes as in armies, where the weaker side sets up false lights, and makes a great noise, to make the enemy believe them more numerous and strong than they really are.