It might be argued, that to be a knave is the gift of fortune, but to play the fool to advantage it is necessary to be a learned man.

As is our confidence, so is our capacity.

The greatest pleasure in life is that of reading while we are young. I have had as much of this pleasure perhaps as any one.

If goodness were only a theory, it were a pity it should be lost to the world. There are a number of things, the idea of which is a clear gain to the mind. Let people, for instance, rail at friendship, genius, freedom, as long as they will -the very names of these despised qualities are better than anything else that could be substituted for them, and embalm even the most envenomed satire against them.

A really great man has always an idea of something greater than himself.

Persons who undertake to pry into, or cleanse out all the filth of a common sewer, either cannot have very nice noses, or will soon lose them.

We often choose a friend as we do a mistress - for no particular excellence in themselves, but merely from some circumstance that flatters our self-love.