Never trust your tongue when your heart is bitter.

There are some works which the authors must consign unpublished to posterity, however uncertain be the event, however hopeless be the trust. He that writes the history of his own times, if he adhere steadily to truth, will write that which his own times will not easily endure. He must be content to reposite his book till all private passions shall cease, and love and hatred give way to curiosity.

There are, indeed, few kinds of composition from which an author, however learned or ingenious, can hope a long continuance of fame.

There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.

I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.

Whatever is formed for long duration arrives slowly to its maturity.

Difference of thoughts will produce difference of language. He that thinks with more extent than another, will want words of a larger meaning; he that thinks with more subtilty will seek for terms of more nice discrimination; and where is the wonder, since words are but the images of things, that he who never knew the original should not know the copies?