Do not expect to be acknowledged for what you are, much less for what you would be; since no one can well measure a great man but upon the bier.

Great men too often have greater faults than little men can find room for.

Heat and animosity, contest and conflict, may sharpen the wits, although they rarely do; they never strengthen the understanding, clear the perspicacity, guide the judgment, or improve the heart.

Clear writers, like fountains, do not seem so deep as they are; the turbid look the most profound.

There are proud men of so much delicacy that it almost conceals their pride, and perfectly excuses it.

Wherever there is excessive wealth, there is also in the train of it excessive poverty.

We must distinguish between felicity and prosperity; for prosperity leads often to ambition, and ambition to disappointment; the course is then over, the wheel turns round but once, while the reaction of goodness and happiness is perpetual.