The finest landscape in the world is improved by a good inn in the foreground.

I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an infidel; but if he be an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is an infidel; that is to say, he has never thought upon the subject.

Age looks with anger on the temerity of youth, and youth with contempt on the scrupulosity of age.

It is scarcely credible to what degree discernment may be dazzled by the mist of pride, and wisdom infatuated by the intoxication of flattery.

Each person's work is always a portrait of himself.

The business of the biographer is often to pass slightly over those performances and incidents which produce vulgar greatness, to lead the thoughts into domestic privacies, and display the minute details of daily life, were exterior appendages are cast aside, and men excel each other only by prudence and virtue.

We may have many acquaintances, but we can have but few friends; this made Aristotle say that he that hath many friends hath none.