The habit of pleasing by flattery makes a language soft; the fear of offending by truth makes it circuitous and conventional.

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.

Teach him to live unto God and unto thee; and he will discover that women, like the plants in woods, derive their softness and tenderness from the shade.

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

Truth sometimes corner unawares upon Caution, and sometimes speaks in public as unconsciously as in a dream.

Little men build up great ones, but the snow colossus soon melts; the good stand under the eye of God, and therefore stand.

Of all failures, to fail in a witticism is the worst, and the mishap is the more calamitous in a drawn-out and detailed one