Whatever I may be, I want to be elsewhere than on paper. My art and my industry have been employed in making myself good for something; my studies, in teaching me to do, not to write. I have put all my efforts into forming my life. That is my trade and my work.

The only good histories are those written by those who had command in the events they describe.

I have gathered a posy of other men’s flowers and only the thread that bonds them is my own.

How many valiant men we have seen to survive their own reputation!

A speech belongs half to the speaker and half to the listener.

He loves little who loves by rule.

No two men ever judged alike of the same thing, and it is impossible to find two opinions exactly similar, not only in different men but in the same men at different times.