The writing of the wise are the only riches our posterity cannot squander.

Two evils, of almost equal weight, may befall the man of erudition; never to be listened to, and to be listened to always.

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

Great men lose somewhat of their greatness by being near us; ordinary men gain much.

We cannot at once catch the applauses of the vulgar and expect the approbation of the wise.

Hope is the mother of faith.

Ambition is but avarice on stilts, and masked. God sometimes sends a famine, sometimes a pestilence, and sometimes a hero, for the chastisement of mankind; none of them surely for our admiration.