Whatsoever we perpetrate, we do but row; we are steered by fate.

It is not sufficiently considered in the hour of exultation, that all human excellence is comparative; that no man performs much but in proportion to what other accomplish, or to the time and opportunities which have been allowed him.

To die completely, a person must not only forget but be forgotten, and he who is not forgotten is not dead.

Nature. As the word is now commonly used it excludes nature's most interesting productions-the works of man. Nature is usually taken to mean mountains, rivers, clouds and undomesticated animals and plants. I am not indifferent to this half of nature, but it interests me much less than the other half.

Since God himself cannot change the past, He is obliged to tolerate the existence of historians.

An obstinate man does not hold opinions, but they hold him; for when he is once possessed with an error, it is, like a devil, only cast out with great difficulty.

We all love best not those who offend us least, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.