Some persons follow the dictates of their conscience only in the same sense in which a coachman may be said to follow the horses he is driving.

When any person of really eminent virtue becomes the object of envy, the clamor and abuse by which he is assailed is but the sign and accompaniment of his success in doing service to the public. And if he is a truly wise man, he will take no more notice of it than the moon does of the howling of the dogs. Her only answer to them is to shine on.

The first requisite of style, not only in rhetoric, but in all compositions, is perspicuity.

To teach one who has no curiosity to learn, is to sow a field without ploughing it.

Falsehood, like poison, will generally be rejected when administered alone; but when blended with wholesome ingredients may be swallowed unperceived.

Falsehood, like the dry-rot, flourishes the more in proportion as air and light are excluded.

Great affectation and great absence of it are at first sight very similar.