To neglect at any time preparation for death is to sleep on our post at a siege; to omit it in old age is to sleep at an attack.

He who praises everybody, praises nobody.

No mind is much employed upon the present; recollection and anticipation fill up almost all our moments.

Whoever rises above those who once pleased themselves with equality, will have many malevolent gazers at his eminence.

Scarcely any degree of judgment is sufficient to restrain the imagination from magnifying that on which it is long detained

Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding.

In a time of war the nation is always of one mind, eager to hear something good of themselves and ill of the enemy. At this time the task of the news-writer is easy; they have nothing to do but to tell that a battle is expected, and afterwards that a battle has been fought, in which we and our friends, whether conquering or conquered, did all, and our enemies did nothing.