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.

The tomb is the pedestal of greatness. I make a distinction between God's great and the king's great.

The assailant is often in the right; that the assailed is always.

He who first praises a book becomingly is next in merit to the author.

Belief in a future life is the appetite of reason.

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

Fame, they tell you, is air; but without air there is no life for any; without fame there is none for the best.