Great men too often have greater faults than little men can find room for.

The sublime is contained in a grain of dust.

Of all failures, to fail in a witticism is the worst, and the mishap is the more calamitous in a drawn-out and detailed one

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.

Every good writer has much idiom; it is the life and spirit of language.

Study is the bane of childhood, the oil of youth, the indulgence of adulthood, and a restorative in old age.

What is reading but silent conversation?