That which moveth the heart most is the best poetry; it comes nearest unto God, the source of all power.

Ridicule has followed the vestiges of truth, but never usurped her place.

It is easy to look down on others; to look down on ourselves is the difficulty.

We fancy that our afflictions are sent us directly from above; sometimes we think it in piety and contrition, but oftener in moroseness and discontent.

Be assured that, although men of eminent genius have been guilty of all other vices, none worthy of more than a secondary name has ever been a gamester. Either an excess of avarice or a deficiency of what, in physics, is called excitability, is the cause of it; neither of which can exist in the same bosom with genius, with patriotism, or with virtue.

I sometimes think that the most plaintive ditty has brought a fuller joy and of longer duration to its composer that the conquest of Persia to the Macedonian.

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