Love and enthusiasm are always ridiculous, when not reciprocated by their objects.

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

Praise is the only gift for which people are really grateful.

Only vain people wage war against the vanity of others.

Superstition is but the fear of belief.

Modern historians are all would-be philosophers; who, instead of relating facts as they occurred, give us their version, or rather perversions of them, always colored by their political prejudices, or distorted to establish some theory . . .

Mediocrity is beneath a brave soul.