Mountains appear more lofty the nearer they are approached, but great men resemble them not in this particular.

... I never will allow myself to form an ideal of any person I desire to see, for disappointment never fails to ensue.

We are more prone to murmur at the punishment of our faults than to lament them.

Friends are the thermometer by which we may judge the temperature of our fortunes.

He who fears not, is to be feared.

Heaven sends us misfortunes as a moral tonic.

Wit lives in the present, but genius survives the future.