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

An ingenuous mind feels in unmerited praise the bitterest reproof. If you reject it you are unhappy, if you accept it you are undone.

Fancy is imagination in her youth and adolescence. Fancy is always excursive; imagination, not seldom, is sedate.

Solitude is the audience-chamber of God.

Everything that looks to the future elevates human nature.

Do not expect to be acknowledged for what you are, much less for what you would be; since no one can well measure a great man but upon the bier.

Virtue is presupposed in friendship.