A friend exaggerates a man's virtues; an enemy inflames his crimes.

There is something very sublime, though very fanciful, in Plato's description of the Supreme Being,--that truth is His body and light His shadow. According to this definition there is nothing so contradictory to his nature as error and falsehood.

Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.

I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.

For ever singing as they shine, The hand that made us is divine.

There is no defence against reproach, but obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatness, as satires and invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph.

Whether zeal or moderation be the point we aim at, let us keep fire out of the one, and frost out of the other.