Everyone calls barbarity what he is not accustomed to.

The most beautiful lives, to my mind, are those that conform to the common human pattern, with order, but without miracle and without eccentricity.

Courtesy is a science of the highest importance. It is...opening a door that we may derive instruction from the example of others, and at the same time enabling us to benefit them by our example, if there be anything in our character worthy of imitation.

We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.

All permanent decisions are made in a temporary state of mind.

On the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.

I love those historians that are either very simple or most excellent. Such as are between both (which is the most common fashion), it is they that spoil all; they will needs chew our meat for us and take upon them a law to judge, and by consequence to square and incline the story according to their fantasy.