In honest truth, a name given to a man is no better than a skin given to him; what is not natively his own falls off and comes to nothing.

Where power is absent we may find the robe of genius, but we miss the throne.

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.

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

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

Two evils, of almost equal weight, may befall the man of erudition; never to be listened to, and to be listened to always.

There is no more certain sign of a narrow mind, of stupidity, and of arrogance, than to stand aloof from those who think differently from us.