There is nothing on earth divine except humanity.

Clear writers, like fountains, do not seem so deep as they are; the turbid look the most profound.

Of all studies, the most delightful and the most useful is biography. The seeds of great events lie near the surface; historians delve too deep for them. No history was ever true. Lives I have read which, if they were not, had the appearance, the interest, and the utility of truth.

A critic is never too severe when he only detects the faults of an author. But he is worse than too severe when, in consequence of this detection, be presumes to place himself on a level with genius.

In honest truth, a name given to a man is no better than a skin given to him; what is not natively his own falls off and comes to nothing.

The sweetest souls, like the sweetest flowers, soon canker in cities, and no purity is rarer there than the purity of delight.

Delay in justice is injustice.