Great orators who are not also great writers become very indistinct shadows to the generations following them. The spell vanishes with the voice.

I like to have a thing suggested rather than told in full. When every detail is given, the mind rests satisfied, and the imagination loses the desire to use its own wings.

Civilization is the lamb's skin in which barbarism masquerades.

The possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man. There is a possible Nero in the gentlest human creature that walks.

I beg you come tonight and dine A welcome waits you and sound wine The Roederer chilly to a charm As Juno's breasts the claret warm.

The ocean moans over dead men's bones.

When friends are at your hearthside met, Sweet courtesy has done its most If you have made each guest forget That he himself is not the host.