Ambition is but avarice on stilts, and masked. God sometimes sends a famine, sometimes a pestilence, and sometimes a hero, for the chastisement of mankind; none of them surely for our admiration.

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

Political men, like goats, usually thrive best among inequalities.

Experience is our only teacher both in war and peace.

He who brings ridicule to bear against truth finds in his hand a blade without a hilt. The most sparkling and pointed flame of wit flickers and expires against the incombustible walls of her sanctuary.

No thoroughly occupied person was ever found really miserable.

I never did a single wise thing in the whole course of my existence, although I have written many which have been thought so.