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.

Quick sensitivity is inseperable from a ready understanding.

Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind

I consider an human soul without education like marble in the quarry, which shows none of its inherent beauties till the skill of the polisher fetches out the colours, makes the surface shine, and discovers every ornamental cloud, spot and vein that runs through the body of it.

My voice is still for war. Gods! can a Roman senate long debate Which of the two to choose, slavery or death?

The most violent appetites in all creatures are lust and hunger; the first is a perpetual call upon them to propagate their kind, the latter to preserve themselves.

To a man of pleasure every moment appears to be lost, which partakes not of the vivacity of amusement.