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

Vanity is the natural weakness of an ambitious man, which exposes him to the secret scorn and derision of those he converses with, and ruins the character he is so industrious to advance by it.

Justice is an unassailable fortress, built on the brow of a mountain which cannot be overthrown by the violence of torrents, nor demolished by the force of armies.

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.

There is not a more pleasante exercise of the mind than gratitude.

A misery is not to be measure from the nature of the evil but from the temper of the sufferer.

Our sight is the most perfect and most delightful of all our senses.