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

A mercantile democracy may govern long and widely; a mercantile aristocracy cannot stand.

The spirit of Greece, passing through and ascending above the world, hath so animated universal nature, that the very rocks and woods, the very torrents and wilds burst forth with it.

Cats ask plainly for what they want.

Moroseness is the evening of turbulence.

I sometimes think that the most plaintive ditty has brought a fuller joy and of longer duration to its composer that the conquest of Persia to the Macedonian.

The deafest man can hear praise, and is slow to think any an excess.