The present, like a note in music, is nothing but as it appertains to what is past and what is to come.

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

If in argument we can make a man angry with us, we have drawn him from his vantage ground and overcome him.

No truer word, save God's, was ever spoken, Than that the largest heart is soonest broken.

Every great writer is a writer of history, let him treat on almost what subject he may.

When a cat flatters ... he is not insincere: you may safely take it for real kindness.

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