As civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines.

The highest intellects, like the tops of mountains, are the first to catch and to reflect the dawn.

Knowledge advances by steps, and not by leaps.

The desire of posthumous fame and the dread of posthumous reproach and execration are feelings from the influence of which scarcely any man is perfectly free, and which in many men are powerful and constant motives of action.

The great cause of revolutions is this, that while nations move onward, constitutions stand still.

There was, it is said, a criminal in Italy who was suffered to make his choice between Guicciardini and the galleys. He chose the history. But the war of Pisa was too much for him; he changed his mind, and went to the oars.

It is possible to be below flattery as well as above it. One who trusts nobody will not trust sycophants. One who does not value real glory will not value its counterfeit.