We oftener say things because we can say them well, than because they are sound and reasonable.

Of all studies, the most delightful and the most useful is biography. The seeds of great events lie near the surface; historians delve too deep for them. No history was ever true. Lives I have read which, if they were not, had the appearance, the interest, and the utility of truth.

There is delight in singing, though none hear beside the singer.

We fancy we suffer from ingratitude, while in reality we suffer from self-love.

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

Those who speak against the great do not usually speak from morality, but from envy.

The worse of ingratitude lies not in the ossified heart of him who commits it, but we find it in the effect it produces on him against whom it was committed.