The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers, And heavily in clouds brings on the day, The great, the important day, big with the fate Of Cato and of Rome.

To look upon the soul as going on from strength to strength, to consider that she is to shine forever with new accessions of glory, and brighten to all eternity; that she will be still adding virtue to virtue, and knowledge to knowledge,--carries in it something wonderfully agreeable to that ambition which is natural to the mind of man.

We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us.

It happened very providentially, to the honor of the Christian religion, that it did not take its rise in the dark illiterate ages of the world, but at a time when arts and sciences were at their height.

Must one rash word, the infirmity of age, throw down the merit of my better years?

The man who lives by hope, will die by hunger.

A good disposition is more valuable than gold, for the latter is the gift of fortune, but the former is the dower of nature.