Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any degree; only about as much as is used in the lowest kinds of poetry. Some penetration, accuracy, and coloring, will fit a man for the task, if he can give the application which is necessary.

In traveling, a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.

There is nothing so minute, or inconsiderable, that I would not rather know it than not.

Wine gives a man nothing... it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.

As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.

It was his peculiar happiness that he scarcely ever found a stranger whom he did not leave a friend; but it must likewise be added, that he had not often a friend long without obliging him to become a stranger.

The truly strong and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.