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

I hate false words, and seek with care, difficulty, and moroseness, those that fit the thing.

Experience is our only teacher both in war and peace.

Truth, like the juice of the poppy, in small quantities, calms men; in larger, heats and irritates them, and is attended by fatal consequences in excess.

Vast objects of remote altitude must be looked at a long while before they are ascertained. Ages are the telescope tubes that must be lengthened out for Shakespeare; and generations of men serve but a single witness to his claims.

Whatever is worthy to be loved for anything is worthy of preservation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, if any such should ever arise among men, will not condemn to death him who has done or is likely to do more service than injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects with legislators, and their business is never with hopes or with virtues.

The sublime is contained in a grain of dust.