No good writer was ever long neglected; no great man overlooked by men equally great. Impatience is a proof of inferior strength, and a destroyer of what little there may be.

It is easy to look down on others; to look down on ourselves is the difficulty.

Fame often rests at first upon something accidental, and often, too, is swept away, or for a time removed; but neither genius nor glory, is conferred at once, nor do they glimmer and fall, like drops in a grotto, at a shout.

We talk on principal, but act on motivation.

Circumstances form the character; but, like petrifying matters, they harden while they form.

What is reading but silent conversation?

Two evils, of almost equal weight, may befall the man of erudition; never to be listened to, and to be listened to always.