We cannot be contented because we are happy, and we cannot be happy because we are contented.

Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose their direction and begin to bend.

Authors are like cattle going to a fair: those of the same field can never move on without butting one another.

Cruelty, if we consider it as a crime, is the greatest of all; if we consider it as a madness, we are equally justifiable in applying to it the readiest and the surest means of oppression.

The moderate are not usually the most sincere, for the same circumspection which makes them moderate makes them likewise retentive of what could give offence.

Great men always pay deference to greater.

Everything that looks to the future elevates human nature; for never is life so low or so little as when occupied with the present.