Power is gradually stealing away from the many to the few, because the few are more vigilant and consistent.

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.

Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing.

There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman.

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

I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's virtues the means of deceiving him.

A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.