When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

Knowledge always desires increase, it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but which will afterwards propagate itself.

All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to show how much he can spare.

Deviation from Nature is deviation from happiness.

No man can have much kindness for him by whom he does not believe himself esteemed, and nothing so evidently proves esteem as imitation.

A successful author is equally in danger of the diminution of his fame, whether he continues or ceases to write.

Ignorance cannot always be inferred from inaccuracy; knowledge is not always present.