Studious to please, yet not ashamed to fail.

Beauty, without kindness, dies unenjoyed and undelighting.

To use two languages familiarly and without contaminating one by the other, is very difficult; and to use more than two is hardly to be hoped. The prizes which some have received for their multiplicity of languages may be sufficient to excite industry, but can hardly generate confidence.

Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with.

I am a friend to subordination, as most conducive to the happiness of society. There is a reciprocal pleasure in governing and being governed.

The chief art of learning, as Locke has observed, is to attempt but little at a time. The widest excursions of the mind are made by short flights frequently repeated; the most lofty fabrics of science are formed by the continued accumulation of single propositions.

The natural progress of the works of men is from rudeness to convenience, from convenience to elegance, and from elegance to nicety.