Example is always more efficacious than precept.

All severity that does not tend to increase good, or prevent evil, is idle.

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity. It becomes cheap as it becomes vulgar, and will no longer raise expectation or animate enterprise.

Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven't courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.

There are some works which the authors must consign unpublished to posterity, however uncertain be the event, however hopeless be the trust. He that writes the history of his own times, if he adhere steadily to truth, will write that which his own times will not easily endure. He must be content to reposite his book till all private passions shall cease, and love and hatred give way to curiosity.

You may translate books of science exactly. ... The beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written.

Politeness is fictitious benevolence. Depend upon it, the want of it never fails to produce something disagreeable to one or other.