Presumption will be easily corrected; but timidity is a disease of the mind more obstinate and fatal.

Then with no throbs of fiery pain, No cold gradations of decay, Death broke at once the vital chain, And freed his soul the nearest way.

He that is pushing his predecessors into the gulf of obscurity, cannot but sometimes suspect, that he must himself sink in like manner, and, as he stands upon the same precipice, be swept away with the same violence.

He who praises everybody, praises nobody.

Let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is not known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he is known.

For life affords no higher pleasure, than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified. He that labours in any great or laudable undertaking, has his fatigues first supported by hope, and afterwards rewarded by joy... To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.

The heroes of literary history have been no less remarkable for what they have suffered than for what they have achieved.