When a man is made up wholly of the dove, without the least grain of the serpent in his composition, he becomes ridiculous in many circumstances of life, and very often discredits his best actions.

We are apt to rely upon future prospects, and become really expensive while we are only rich in possibility. We live up to our expectations, not to our possessions, and make a figure proportionable to what we may be, not what we are.

One should take good care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life as laughter.

There is no greater sign of a general decay of virtue in a nation, than a want of zeal in its inhabitants for the good of their country.

It must be so,-Plato, thou reasonest well! Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality? Or whence this secret dread and inward horror Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 'T is the divinity that stirs within us; 'T is Heaven itself that points out an hereafter, And intimates eternity to man. Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought!

No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.

It is the privilege of posterity to set matters right between those antagonists who, by their rivalry for greatness, divided a whole age.