Politeness is not always a sign of wisdom; but the want of it always leaves room for a suspicion of folly, if folly and imprudence are the same.

Harmonious words render ordinary ideas acceptable; less ordinary, pleasant; novel and ingenious ones, delightful. As pictures and statues, and living beauty, too, show better by music-light, so is poetry irradiated, vivified, glorified', and raised into immortal life by harmony.

Life and death appear more certainly ours than whatsoever else; and yet hardly can that be called ours, which comes without our knowledge, and goes without it.

All schools of philosophy, and almost all authors, are rather to be frequented for exercise than for weight.

The writing of the wise are the only riches our posterity cannot squander.

States, like men, have their growth, their manhood, their decrepitude, their decay.

There is delight in singing, though none hear beside the singer.