The dread of criticism is the death of genius.

Distinction is an eminence that is attained but too frequently at the expense of a fireside.

The only true source of politeness is consideration.

There is a native baseness in the ambition which seeks beyond its desert, that never shows more conspicuously than when, no matter how, it temporarily gains its object.

No doubt solitude is wholesome, but so is abstinence after a surfeit. The true life of man is in society.

Vanity is so constantly solicitous of self, that even where its own claims are not interested, it indirectly seeks the aliment which it loves, by showing how little is deserved by others.

Our possessions are wholly in our performances. He owns nothing to whom the world owes nothing.