There are some works which the authors must consign unpublished to posterity, however uncertain be the event, however hopeless be the trust.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.

Friendship, compounded of esteem and love, derives from one its tenderness and its permanence from the other.

A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.

There are few so free from vanity as not to dictate to those who will hear their instructions with a visible sense of their own beneficence.

Quotation is the highest compliment you can pay an author.

The majority of a society is the true definition of the public.

Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance.