I have adopted the Roman sentiment, that it is more honorable to save a citizen than to kill an enemy.

A man who always talks for fame never can be pleasing. The man who talks to unburthen his mind is the man to delight you.

Among those whose reputation is exhausted in a short time by its own luxuriance are the writers who take advantage of present incidents or characters which strongly interest the passions, and engage universal attention. It is not difficult to obtain readers, when we discuss a question which every one is desirous to understand, which is debated in every assembly, and has divided the nation into parties; or when we display the faults or virtues of him whose public conduct has made almost every man his enemy or his friend.

Love is only one of many passions.

Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed.

No writer can be fully convicted of imitation except there is a concurrence of more resemblance than can be imagined to have happened by chance; as where the same ideas are conjoined without any natural series or necessary coherence, or where not only the thought but the words are copied.

Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent.