I have often thought that there has rarely passed a life of which a judicious and faithful narrative would not be useful; for not only every man has, in the mighty mass of the world, great numbers in the same condition with himself, to whom his mistakes and miscarriages, escapes and expedients, would be of immediate and apparent use; but there is such a uniformity in the state of man, considered apart from adventitious and separable decorations and disguises, that there is scarce any possibility of good or ill but is common to human kind.

I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.

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

The most Heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together.

Self-love is often rather arrogant than blind; it does not hide our faults from ourselves, but persuades us that they escape the notice of others.

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

He that accepts protection, stipulates obedience. We have always protected the Americans; we may therefore subject them to government.