Modesty and diffidence make a man unfit for public affairs; they also make him unfit for brothels.

Immoderate power, like other intemperance, leaves the progeny weaker and weaker, until nature as in compassion covers it with her mantle and it is seen no more.

Everything that looks to the future elevates human nature.

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

Politeness is not always a sign of wisdom; but the want of it always leaves room for a suspicion of folly, if folly and imprudence are the same.

Was genius ever ungrateful? Mere talents are dry leaves, tossed up and down by gusts of passion, and scattered and swept away; but, Genius lies on the bosom of Memory, and Gratitude at her feet.

No good writer was ever long neglected; no great man overlooked by men equally great. Impatience is a proof of inferior strength, and a destroyer of what little there may be.