The sweetest souls, like the sweetest flowers, soon canker in cities, and no purity is rarer there than the purity of delight.

I warmed both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart.

Fame, they tell you, is air; but without air there is no life for any; without fame there is none for the best.

Truth, like the juice of the poppy, in small quantities, calms men; in larger, heats and irritates them, and is attended by fatal consequences in excess.

He who first praises a book becomingly is next in merit to the author.

We cannot at once catch the applauses of the vulgar and expect the approbation of the wise.

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