When a language begins to teem with books, it is tending to refinement; as those who undertake to teach others must have undergone some labour in improving themselves, they set a proportionate value on their own thoughts, and wish to enforce them by efficacious expressions; speech becomes embodied and permanent; different modes and phrases are compared, and the best obtains an establishment. By degrees one age improves upon another.

The happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.

Those who have any intention of deviating from the beaten roads of life, and acquiring a reputation superior to names hourly swept away by time among the refuse of fame, should add to their reason and their spirit the power of persisting in their pur

Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price.

Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.

If we estimate dignity by immediate usefulness, agriculture is undoubtedly the first and noblest science.

The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.