It is but a poor eloquence which only shows that the orator can talk.

Few have been taught to any purpose who have not been their own teachers.

The excellence of every art, must consist in the complete accomplishment of its purpose

He who resolves never to ransack any mind but his own, will be soon reduced, from mere barrenness, to the poorest of all imitations; he will be obliged to imitate himself, and to repeat what he has before often repeated.

Every art, like our own, has in its composition fluctuating as well as fixed principles. It is an attentive inquiry into their difference that will enable us to determine how far we are influenced by custom and habit, and what is fixed in the nature of things.

If you have great talents, industry will improve them: if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency.

And he who does not know himself does not know others, so it may be said with equal truth, that he who does not know others knows himself but very imperfectly.