Nations, like individuals, interest us in their growth.

We may receive so much light as not to see, and so much philosophy as to be worse than foolish.

There is a desire of property in the sanest and best men, which Nature seems to have implanted as conservative of her works, and which is necessary to encourage and keep alive the arts.

Virtue is presupposed in friendship.

Little men build up great ones, but the snow colossus soon melts; the good stand under the eye of God, and therefore stand.

A smile is ever the most bright and beautiful with a tear upon it. What is the dawn without the dew? The tear is rendered by the smile precious above the smile itself.

There is a gravity which is not austere nor captious, which belongs not to melancholy nor dwells in contraction of heart: but arises from tenderness and hangs upon reflection.